


The Precedent

by Smehur



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Dark, Dubious Consent, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:14:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 27,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26438515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smehur/pseuds/Smehur
Summary: Two years before Eden Prime, Saren enlists Nihlus’s help to get an old friend out of some serious trouble. But it's only the tip of the iceberg. How far will he go to ensure the success and secrecy of his misguided quest?
Relationships: Saren Arterius/Nihlus Kryik
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	1. The Reception

Nihlus was swaying on his toes to the rhythm of the quiet music, rolling the azure brandy inside the impossibly thin glass. The human dignitary, a tall, white-haired man with a wrinkled face and extremely limp lips, was speaking incessantly, occasionally spraying him with spit. At first, Nihlus had been trying to keep up in earnest, cocking his head at odd angles in the attempts to catch the human’s name-tag, but after a while it became clear that the human was perfectly satisfied to supply the conversation on his own and Nihlus settled for giving random smiles and nods. There was no hope for escape; the human had locked his gaze with a focused intensity and to look away even for a second in search for salvation would probably constitute casus belli.

“It was a different thing back in the 60s. As a diplomatic currier, I was allowed on most turian colonies, but not on Palaven. We tried many tricks.” The human laughed, and Nihlus subdued the reflex to wipe his face clean. “We even tried to organize an artistic workshop of sorts and brought with us a choir that numbered one hundred and fifty young men and women. Of course, it was a misfire; but to make nice, the turians allowed us to land on Nanus, and organized a joint concert. It was magnificent. Our musicians learned Die for the Cause, and the turians learned the Ode to Joy. Do you know the tune?”

Nihlus cleared his throat and intoned the beginning of the human anthem. He had always liked it. Conversation around them died out, and when he finished, the humans gave him a polite little applause. It was a perfect opportunity to excuse himself. He made a court nod and wormed his way into the crowd, where more than a few turian faces turned to frown at his performance. Somehow, no matter the actual reason for the gathering, every reception at the human embassy that involved any number of turians, turned into a commemoration of the first-contact incident. The air was heavy with saccharine spirit of reconciliation that half of the guests on both sides resented in secret.

And then there were some who resented it openly. Nihlus stopped short and spilled his brandy. Saren was staring at him from across the room. Everything and everyone else suddenly faded into a mute, blurry background. Clad in black and silver, with the long flaps of a velveteen robe pooling around his feet and a matched set of mandible and crest rings sparkling around his statuesque face, Saren looked like one of the paintings exhibited as a part of the event: exalted, as intimidating and intangible as an approaching storm, the stuff of myth and legend misplaced among ordinary men.

Nihlus tried to swallow the rest of his drink, noticed that most of it had ended up on his hand, and caught himself trying to lick it off his talons. Spirits. Not even a decade of friendship could quell the excitement of an unexpected meeting with Saren. He put the glass down on the nearest table and grabbed a paper tissue, struggling to regain his dignity before walking over.

“Saren,” he said, with a smile that was impossible to hold back.

“Nihlus.” Saren took his measure from crest to toe. “I knew I’d find you here.”

The remark had Saren’s signature tone of biting disapproval, but Nihlus just laughed. “Wish I could say the same! I’d have dressed better.” He waited, in vain, for a polite compliment on his relatively casual attire, the fact that he could make even casual look exquisitely good, or at least a, _you look fine, Nihlus_. But nope. “What brings you?”

“Curiosity.” The cursory glance he gave to the room and the exhibits testified to anything but. He sighed. “Sparatus insisted.”

“Ah.” That made more sense. “Come on. Let me get you a drink.”

“Not with those hands.”

Looking down, Nihlus realized that the nervous knotting of his fingers shredded the paper tissue he had used to “wipe” them “clean” before, and the red tatters clung to his sticky talons in a theatrical mess. “It’s your fault,” he said. “I assure you I’m perfectly normal when you’re not around.”

“Mhm.”

Nihlus laughed some more. “I’ll be a minute.”

Chasing down a waiter on the way back from the restroom, he grabbed two glasses, gobbled one down right there, replaced it. He found Saren in the main hall, studying one of the exhibits.

“I wonder what idiot thought this would be appropriate for the occasion,” he said, accepting the glass. The offending object was some ancient turian tablet. Nihlus squinted at the tiny letters of the holo description but he was already a bit drunk and in truth, didn’t really care. Saren glanced at him and flicked his mandibles. “It’s from the Temple. See those symmetric lines? It’s supposed to be a depiction of a winged turian.”

“Huh,” Nihlus said, turning his head to the side to try and make out the shape. He had seen this exhibit half a dozen times since its debut at the official 20-years-of-peace celebration but had never bothered learning what it was. Probably the pride of someone’s private collection. He sipped his drink, discretely sniffing the air between them. It carried the soft fragrance of Palaven rain pine. “Does this kind of thing upset you?”

“No. But it has no place here.” He stalked away in the direction of a human painting. “I bet you know what _this_ is.”

“Nope. My lack of culture is evenly distributed across all sentient species.”

Another flick of the mandible, this time of humor rather than annoyance. The painting depicted a human crazed with pain or despair, holding another, who looked dead. Striking stuff. Nihlus nodded with appreciation.

“Ivan the Terrible and his son,” Saren said. “A reproduction. A good one, at that.”

Of course, _Saren_ knew what it was. “Don’t tell me you like it?”

“I think it’s a good reproduction.”

“I mean the content, not the form.”

“I know what you mean, Nihlus, and by now you should know how to recognize a useless line of questioning.”

Nihlus laughed and downed his drink. Up until a few years ago, this kind of comment could’ve ruined his evening. But those days were long gone, and no amount of Saren’s grumpiness could interfere with how happy Nihlus was to see him. “You’re in a fine mood.”

“Same as always.”

“Anyway, I like it.” Nihlus indicated the painting with his empty glass. “It’s disturbing.”

“You enjoy disturbing things?”

“Obviously. Why else would I seek your company?”

Saren snorted. He led the way again, absently swirling his untouched drink, and stopped in front of a few other exhibits but made no more comments. Nihlus followed, content to stay in his wake and savor his electrifying presence. Pleasantly warm from the alcohol, he fantasized about sneaking out through the back door and giving Saren a quick handjob in some dark passage between windowless buildings. He seemed tired and tense—indeed, same as always—and would surely benefit from blowing off some steam. Spirits knew Nihlus would.

After many minutes of companionable silence, just as he was about to suggest something along those lines, Sparatus waved at them from the middle of the room. Saren raised the glass to him, then placed it in Nihlus’s hand. “Duty calls.”

“I’ll pass,” Nihlus said. “Find me when you’re done, yeah?”

But Saren had already left. Nihlus gulped his drink and made a face. It was warm as piss.

#

The evening dragged out and by the time people started to leave, the only thing keeping Nihlus from doing the same was the prospect of spending the night with Saren. Where the hell was he? Certainly not at the bar—Nihlus had that covered. Although he had gotten fairly drunk, his sense of humor was gone. He stared wistfully at the scattered remnants of the crowd. Could Saren have left without him?

“Lately you often do that when you’re nervous.”

Nihlus jumped. “Fuck! You trying to give me a heart attack?” Somehow, he had failed to see Saren approach. He wasn’t _that_ drunk, was he? Heads turned and the human barista was giving him an evil eye for yelling. “Sorry,” he said, to no one in particular. “Do what?”

“This.” Saren raised a hand to his own neck and felt under the mandible.

Miming the motion, Nihlus realized it was true. He’d developed a habit of touching the scars there. “Not nervous,” he muttered. “Just eager to leave.”

“As am I.” When that was met with a doubtful grunt, Saren added, “I didn’t plan to stay this long.” It was as close to an apology as Nihlus could hope for, even though there was nothing to apologize for.

They made it to Saren’s apartment without exchanging another word. It was dark inside, and the carpeted floor drowned the sound of their footsteps. The moment Saren locked the door, Nihlus fell upon him like a starved beast. He slammed bodily into him, closer, closer, drinking in the touch of him, the scent of him, the taste of him, and Spirits! There was nothing he’d ever experienced that could compare to the sensation of Saren’s arms around him. Nihlus held him in a drunken embrace, cheek to cheek, clumsily feeling the clasps of his robes. He breathed his lust into Saren’s ear and felt the moist caress of Saren’s breath as it turned into uneven, violent bursts. A deep, dark hum full of longing came from Saren’s chest and resonated through his own. But something was off.

Nihlus paused, breathless, pushed himself away and tried to read Saren’s face in the darkness, but the glow of his mechanical eyes revealed nothing. “You ok?”

“Nihlus.” He was out of breath too. Damn, that was hot. “Stop. We need to speak.”

“Right now?” Not waiting for a reply, he moved to dive back in, but Saren clasped his shoulders and held him at an arm’s length.

“I’m serious.” He disengaged and stepped aside, then turned on the light.

Nihlus squinted and growled in frustration. “So was I.”

Ignoring him, Saren bent down to pull off his boots. “Keep your voice down,” he instructed. “And take off your shoes.”

Nihlus gaped, unbelieving, until it became apparent that his case of extreme hardon would not be given any further consideration at this time. In the end he huffed and did as he was told.

Saren motioned him to follow and tiptoed toward the bedroom, going as far as to use the ‘keep quiet’ hand signal when they reached the closed door. Only then did Nihlus conceive of the notion that they might not be alone.

Holding the door ajar, Saren let him have a peek inside. The opulent bedroom, with heavy golden curtains and a glossy purple bed cover, was dark save for an incongruous rubber nightlight shaped as a pyjack that gave off a soft yellow glow. There was someone in the bed. Nihlus blinked to make sure his eyes weren’t deceiving him. It was a kid. A tiny asari girl, surely no more than five years old.

He turned to give Saren a questioning look, but Saren just shook his head and signaled for retreat. Stunned, Nihlus followed him to the living room in silence.

“Sit,” Saren said. Nervous and suddenly chilly, Nihlus decided he’d rather stand. He hugged his elbows, looking around. Nothing had changed since the last time he’d been here. The place still looked as unlived-in as ever. Immaculate and impersonal, like an expensive hotel suite. “Would you like a drink?”

Nihlus watched in wonder as Saren walked back from the drink cabinet carrying an unopened bottle of quarian black sherry and two glasses. “No, thanks,” he said absently. “I had more than enough already.”

Saren half-filled one of the glasses. Unable to hold back any longer, Nihlus squared his arms at the hips. “What’s going on?”

“I need your help, Nihlus.”

The words seemed to echo. In all the long years of their acquaintance, Saren had needed help on more than a few occasions, but had never actually _asked_ for it. Never.

When no answer came, he looked up. “Will I have it?”

“Yes,” Nihlus breathed, shaking off the shock. “Of course. I’m sorry, I was just… Yes, my love. Anything you need.” My life, my body, my soul.

Saren nodded. “I also need you to agree to let questions go unanswered.”

“That bad, huh?”

In place of a reply, Saren took a sip of the drink—then downed it.

“Sure,” Nihlus said. “I won’t press you. Is this… about that girl?” It had to be.

Saren nodded again. “You remember Elethea?”

“Of course.” How could he forget? She used to be Saren’s biotics instructor, one of his very few friends, and, Nihlus speculated, a lover, at some point or another. She also once made it galactic news as a suspect in the murder of an asari matriarch.

“That’s her daughter in there.”

“I see.” Nihlus pinched the back of his neck. A headache was brewing there. “Is she in trouble?”

“Yes.”

With the glass laid carefully on the tablecloth, Saren sat on the low sofa and cradled his forehead in his hands. The unusual gesture made Nihlus even more cautious and attentive. He had never seen Saren act like this. “What kind of trouble?” he ventured.

Saren lifted his face and took a deep breath. “I asked her to do me a favor. A risky, dangerous thing, you understand. She was to infiltrate the FOMA and get me some information about the cult.”

“FOMA,” Nihlus repeated, chasing a faint memory down the dark recesses of his numb brain. “The uh… Fellowship of… Mother… Athame?”

“Maiden Athame. The members are also known as Athamists.”

“Oh, alright. That rings a bell.”

“What do you know about them?”

“Uh. Not much?” It had been years since he’d last encountered these terms and he couldn’t even recall the context. “They’re a monotheistic sect. Fanatical but not exactly extremist. Also, rather apolitical? The sort that doesn’t care about the decisions of the secular government as long as no one challenges their religious views. Basically, the asari version of the Velluvian Knights: mysterious, few and exclusive, like a secret society. More hype than action.” He was now stabbing at random associations. “Don’t think I’ve ever heard of them actually _doing_ anything.”

“They have done plenty. This isn’t widely known, but they’re one of the oldest asari cults. They have labored for millennia to falsify certain… unflattering parts of pre-space asari history. Elethea was supposed to learn where they keep key artifacts and scriptures. Revealing them might destabilize the entire asari society, with far-reaching consequences for the politics and economy of all Council space.”

“Which is why you’re on the case, I assume.”

Saren stared at his hands, saying nothing.

“Aaaand… that’s where I don’t ask any more questions,” Nihlus concluded after a while.

“Thank you.”

“You’ll have to tell me what happened, though. Did Elethea got found out?”

“Yes. They captured her.” Saren closed his eyes and leaned back, his mandibles working. “And they will kill her unless we get to her first.”

Moving quietly, Nihlus lowered himself onto a soft seat too. As the gravity of the situation dawned on him, the drunken stupor started to retreat. “Did they ask for something? Ransom? Are you sure she’s still alive?”

“I can’t be sure of anything. But I hope they want this bad enough to trade her for it.” Out of a fold of his robe, Saren produced a talon-sized object that looked like an ornament or some archaic device. It gave off a faint green glow.

Nihlus squinted, knowing better than to reach for it. “What is it?”

“A powered prothean artifact.”

Saren’s eyes sparkled strangely and suddenly Nihlus felt this was a test. He raised his browplates. “Is it… genuine?”

“Of course not.” Saren turned the object around a few times, then placed it on the table between them. “But it’s the best imitation Council’s credits can buy.”

“A good reproduction, eh?”

“Yes.”

Relieved, for no reason he could readily identify, Nihlus picked the thing up and scrutinized it. It was metallic and cold to the touch, but much lighter than it sounded upon contact with the table. The green glow came from incredibly thin grooves lining its surface in neat, but unfamiliar, geometric patterns. He wondered if he had passed the test and if inquiring about this further would make him sound smart or stupid. With ST&R resources at his disposal, he had easily done as much prothean research as any professional archaeologist, yet he had never come across anything like this. And why would some obscure asari sect care for it?

His head was buzzing with questions, but all he said was, “Alright.” He laid the artifact down. “So, uh… where do I come in?”

“I need you to make the exchange. I cannot be seen.”

“Because you’re afraid you might implicate Benezia?” Nihlus swallowed, trying to hide the sudden pang of jealousy that inevitably happened every time Benezia was mentioned. Saren’s friendship with her and their prodigious financial ventures of late were a matter of public knowledge—while his years-long relationship with Nihlus, he kept like a dirty secret.

When he didn’t answer, Nihlus nodded. “Okay. Doesn’t sound any worse than most shit we do for a living.” Not that he’d refuse even if it were. He’d drive his ship into a fucking star if Saren demanded it. “You’ll stay here with the kid?”

“Yes.” Saren brought up his omni. After a moment, Nihlus’s omni vibrated too. “These are the coordinates of the rendezvous point. I’ve already sent them a scan of the artifact and they agreed to bring Elethea. You’ll find all the other details in the file.” He looked up, and for the first time since the party, Nihlus had the impression of being really _seen_. “You must be exceedingly careful. Elthe is one of the greatest huntresses to have ever lived. I don’t know how her cover was blown, but if they could get her, they can get you too. Don’t give me that look,” he said, raising up a finger. “You know I’d be telling you the same even if we went together. More likely than not, Elthe is dead already and this is a trap. But I owe her to at least try.”

 _Elthe_ , Nihlus thought. He was pretty sure he had never heard Saren use that nickname. Saren wasn’t exactly a nickname sort of guy. What would he call Benezia? Bezie? Zee? He shuddered. “ _You_ know I’ll do my best.”

Saren heaved a heavy sigh. “The artifact isn’t genuine, but it’s worth so much that it may as well be. Keep it safe. And stay safe.” He seemed to debate whether to continue. “No unnecessary risks. Promise.”

Nihlus’s heart melted. “I promise, my love. I’ll bring her back to you. And to—what’s her name?”

“Eleni.”

Nihlus smiled.


	2. The Wait

Five standard hours later, Saren was beginning to tire from pacing through the lifeless rooms of his Citadel apartment. It had dawned soon after Nihlus had left, but Saren had been unable to focus on his usual daily paperwork. It took all his willpower to not check his omni every minute. By the calculations he had made earlier, the trip to the rendezvous point should have taken no more than two standard hours. Assuming Nihlus wouldn’t wait until he was back at the Citadel to report, he was still on Cyone. Fighting? Negotiating with those lunatics? Captured, or worse?

Saren hated being in the dark.

At least the child hadn’t awoken yet. Though that too was slowly turning into a source of anxiety. For reasons Saren didn’t entirely understand, she’d had to be sedated for the trip. As a child of her age, Saren hadn’t had many opportunities to travel at FTL but the few times Mother took him to Nanus, there were no special preparations. Eleni’s caretakers were professionals, however, handpicked by Elthe and background-checked by Saren himself. He’d had no reason to question their judgment, even if there had been time for it. And there hadn’t. With Elthe’s identity compromised, the girl was no longer safe on Thessia.

But it had been almost a full day now. Like he didn’t have enough to worry about, he now wondered if he should call the caretakers and inquire if the girl had taken that medication before, and how long it was supposed to stay in effect. If something happened to her…

The distraction of having to look after a child was the last thing he would normally wish upon himself. But doing nothing was driving him crazy. He walked to the bedroom and quietly opened the door.

The girl was a small bundle under the cover. Only the rear ends of her crest peeked from among the pillows. Standing still, Saren observed her breathing. Deep and rhythmical, barely audible. So far as he could tell from the state of the bed, she hadn’t moved much during the night at all.

“Eleni?”

He waited, but there was no response. Walking around the bed to the other side, he noticed that she was hugging something under the cover. Her face was almost entirely hidden too, but he could see her closed eyes. No trace of tears on the pillow. Good. It’s how he remembered her from the one past encounter: a stoic little commando. Not keen on company, however.

“I know you’re awake,” he said, as gently as he knew how. “I can tell from the way you breathe. The rhythm of breathing is imperfect when you sleep. Short breaths, long breaths, breaks between breaths.” To his amusement, she immediately applied the lesson. The variation was a bit over the top, but admissible for someone in the middle of a dream, or about to wake.

“I can tell from the lack of eye-movement too,” he went on. “When people sleep, their eyes twitch randomly under the lids. Well, unless they’re drell.” Unsurprisingly, the girl’s eyes started twitching. Again, it was exaggerated, but not bad for the first try. Saren smiled. “The best way to learn about this is to observe others in deep sleep.” That was how he had learned. He used to watch Mother for hours at night, measuring the length of her breaths and suffering intermittent dread when the next inhale didn’t come as predicted. He watched Desolas too, but only rarely. Like Saren himself, Desolas had a shallow, fretful sleep and was prone to waking at the slightest noise. And sometimes, his eyes would crack open even though he wasn’t awake. Nihlus had that too.

The thought of Nihlus brought him back from the reverie. He glanced at his omni. Nothing yet. Suddenly it occurred to him that it might not have been wise to plant the idea of stalking people at night into the child’s mind. She was difficult enough already. What would Elthe say if she caught the girl doing this and somehow learned it was the result of Saren’s inapt fostering? He would have to take greater care of what he says in Eleni’s company.

And then he realized that Eleni might never have the chance to watch her mother sleep again.

“Come on,” he said. A good measure of his usual harshness had crept back into his voice. He tried to tone it down, but the reawakened anxiety fought back. “It’s time to get up. You need to eat and go to the bathroom. After that I’ll leave you alone.”

He should’ve seen it coming the moment the girl’s eyes shot open in horror at the mention of _eating_. He had scarcely finished speaking when she bolted from the bed with shocking dexterity and disappeared through the open door, a flash of wiry limbs and bellowing silken pajamas. She was out of sight in a split second.

Saren huffed. It wasn’t that the girl was afraid of him. She had recognized him on Thessia, even though it had been more than two years since she had seen him the first and the last time. She even remembered a simple game they had played, where she would scramble a pile of holo toys, then watch Saren put them in order by shape, color and size. He was convinced it was his hands that provided the entertainment, rather than the game itself. She was fascinated with his long talons.

He used one of them now to pull away the cover and see what she had been clutching. A wave of embarrassment drove hot blood to his neck. It was the thresher-maw tooth—a “housewarming” gift from Sparatus and his wife when Saren had purchased this apartment. A priceless trophy that even fit tolerably well with the décor. But he never liked it, and only kept it on display because he rarely spent any time here anyway. Until it became a victim of Nihlus’s perversion. He had decided, at first sight, that it would make an excellent sex toy—and, well, Saren had been forced, however begrudgingly, to agree. Since then, he had kept it in the bedside drawer.

Apparently, Eleni had gone through the things there. Probably through the other drawers too, and possibly the closet as well. Saren panicked for a moment, then recalled that he no longer kept any weapons in this room. Beside the thresher toy, as Nihlus called it, a small bottle of lubricant in the drawer on the other side of the bed, and a pair of handcuffs at the top shelf in the closet, there were no other incriminating objects. But the lubricant had a safety cap, and the cuffs were intact. The thresher trophy was only a toy for him and Nihlus—for anyone else, the girl included, it was just an ivory decoration. He always sterilized such items after use, so there were no health risks. Even if she had… put it in the mouth. Like children do.

He closed his eyes and shook his head clear of the notion. There were more important things to focus on. Like finding her and keeping her safe from the _rest_ of his possessions.

“Eleni?”

Not that he expected her to reply; she wasn’t keen on speaking either. She was, however, extremely keen on hiding, and quite skilled at it too. It had been a relief to learn she’d be sedated for the trip. The Virial wasn’t a passenger vehicle, let alone one suitable to carry children. It was full of hazards, and the scenarios where she’d get caught inside of working machinery while trying to hide had tormented Saren, along with other dark musings, on the way to Thessia.

The apartment wasn’t _that_ dangerous, but there were knives and heavy pots in the kitchen, windows a child might manage to open in the living room, and various appliances everywhere. Walking out of the bedroom, he called up his omni and ordered a manual override lockdown of all electric devices. Except the cameras. He scrolled through the surveillance feeds. Nothing seemed out of order—now. Rewinding the entry-hall feed, he caught her blurry form running into the kitchen.

Since he’d likely be reduced to finding her by elimination, he now locked the doors to the bedroom, the guest bathroom and the living room; and once he was in the kitchen, he locked that too. The camera feed was useless here. She had ducked and crawled under the table as if she had known she was being watched. Of course, she was no longer there—that would’ve been too easy.

He called her name again. The last thing he wanted was to surprise and frighten her. She could’ve hidden anywhere. Most cabinets were empty and more than spacious enough to comfortably house a child that small. She hadn’t grown much. Skin and bone and pale enough to pass as a human, she looked borderline neglected. But Saren knew better. Elthe was a devoted, wise parent, and having a child with special needs had been her choice, not an accident.

A dubious choice, as Saren would forever maintain. But who was he to criticize anyone for _that_?

After checking the cabinets, revising his initial idea that the girl could fit in them _comfortably_ , and finding nothing, he went on to the dining room. Nowhere to hide there. It was all table and chairs and meaningless decorations. She wasn’t in the little storeroom either, and the balcony was locked. Having made a full circle, he ended up in the living room, facing the door to the entry-hall that he had locked earlier.

He called out one last time. Nothing. Admitting defeat, he turned on the geth scanner built into his cybernetic eyes and the elegant green overlay outlined everything in his field of view. Turning around, he finally spotted her at eight o’clock.

She was practically in plain sight. Saren turned off the scanner to assure himself he couldn’t see her with unaided eyes, then turned it on again to assure himself she was there. Standing sideways behind a life-sized wooden sculpture of a klixen hatchling, she soundlessly maneuvered around it to compensate for Saren’s movement, so it was always obstructing his line of sight. With the window behind, the statue hid even her shadow. It was ingenious. And she couldn’t _see_ Saren any more than he could see her. Could she tell his exact position by hearing? By smell? Or by sensing his biotic field? Chances were, he’d never know.

“Hmpf,” he said, pretending to continue the search. He looked behind the sofa, under the massive recliner, and lifted the lid of the antique sword-case. “Where could she have gone?” He turned around some more and once again checked the balcony door, then mimed an exaggerated shrug. “I’ll have breakfast on my own, then.”

He had been warned that feeding her would be a problem. The caretakers even had him note the precise infusion formula he should inject her with if she collapsed. It had happened before, they said. But they also told him about the foods she liked, or at least tolerated, and he had them delivered in quantities to last a month. Just in case. Now he studied the recipe for the vezillian omelet, while keeping half an eye out for movement in the living room.

The aroma of alien food, hardly appetizing but not as bad as some other asari meals he had prepared in the past, filled the kitchen as the omelet fried. He poured the purple juice—melon and figs, the carton said, showing something that looked like flowers, not fruit, to Saren—in a wide glass and laid out several slices of foul-smelling levo cheese on a large plate. The omelet was done. He rubbed his hands, in mock intent to eat it all himself. And then his omni buzzed.

A call from Nihlus. Playing hide-and-seek with the girl and cooking breakfast had managed to lift Saren’s anxiety but now it clenched him with renewed vigor. Elthe is dead, he predicted, trying to prepare himself for the shock of the news, and the grim duty of communicating it to the girl. He set his mandibles and took the call on the omni.

“I got her,” Nihlus said at once. He lifted the visor of his helmet, splattered with blood. “She’s alive but in bad shape. I’m taking her to the nearest hospital.”

“No.” Saren’s mind raced. The Athamists were embedded in every pore of asari society, insidious and patient, watching, listening, waiting. They’d locate her within the hour if Nihlus didn’t get her off the planet. “Bring her here. We can treat her on the Virial.”

“You don’t understand. It looks like internal bleeding. What if medigel isn’t enough to stop it? She might—” he leaned closer to the camera, perhaps remembering the child, and went on in a whisper. “She might die.”

“She’ll be at an even greater risk if you take her to a hospital. Nihlus," Saren inhaled, striving to sound calm, while inside, the rage was waking up and stretching its clawed paws. _What have they done to her?_ “You agreed—no questioning. If something happens, it will be on me, not on you. Just do as I said.”

He could see the conflict between common sense and duty play out on Nihlus’s face. He had never been one to blindly follow orders; a trait that had made his life in the army miserable. But during his service as a Spectre, questioning everything was not only desirable, but requisite for survival. His days as Saren’s student were long gone. He was used to doing things his own way now and this went contrary to all his instincts.

Duty to the Council was one thing, however, and duty to Saren, another. Nihlus gathered his mandibles and nodded. “I’m fine, by the way. Thanks for asking.”

The call flicked out. Saren’s chest ached as he struggled to keep the rage under the surface. Judging by his beastly grimace, reflected in the polished tray down on the counter, he was failing. Damn Nihlus! You could always count on him to supply the drop that overfilled the glass with a toxic remark like that. What was there to ask? It had been clear that Nihlus was _fine_ at a glance. Pointless platitudes, like calling Saren “my love” before. What if he did that in front of the girl?

The girl. Saren had walked into a corner to make the conversation more private, forehead almost touching the cupboards. Now he turned.

The omelet was gone, and so was a slice of cheese and about half of the juice. He had been too consumed in the exchange with Nihlus to hear the child approach or leave. Fresh out of patience, he turned on the scanner again to confirm she was back in her hiding place. But at least she had eaten.

What was he to do with her now? He would have to take her with him on board the Virial after all. Briefly he considered sedating her once more, putting her in a stasis field, or some sort of cage? But Elthe would smite him for even thinking it.

If she lived.

He started loading a bag with asari provisions.


	3. The Reunion

Nihlus almost had an out of body experience watching Saren approach with the kid.

He walked at his fastest pace, taking long strides and his long black robes—the same attire he had worn to the embassy reception last night, a lifetime ago—billowed behind him like smoke from a raging fire. The large bag strapped over his shoulder bounced off his hip. In the cold Citadel morning light, his face seemed even paler and harsher than usual, grim and tired, with browplates set low and murder in his eyes.

The kid looked impossibly small and frail next to him. Even running, she could barely keep up. With one tiny hand she gripped Saren’s index talon, and with the other, some vaguely familiar, pointed object that looked like anything but a child’s toy. Her eyes, dark and huge on her little face, hungrily drank in the surroundings, staring everywhere, at everything, the people, the ships, the terminals and benches, like she had never been in a starport before.

“You’re late,” Nihlus said through clenched mandibles when they were within hearing distance.

Saren appraised him, crest to toes, undoubtedly looking for the bloodstains Nihlus had diligently removed from his armor for the kid’s sake. “Has anyone seen you carry her?” He turned around to eye Nihlus’s ship, the Othrys, docked about two hundred meters away, and the security cameras along the path to where they stood, in front of the Virial’s airlock.

“No. I wrapped her in a blanket. Her face was covered.”

“Good.”

“Here.” Nihlus tossed him the fake prothean artifact. “I didn’t need it.”

Saren caught it and pocketed it at the speed of light, then glared at Nihlus for treating the best the Council’s credits could buy so recklessly. Nihlus glared back. If the Council’s credits meant so much to him, he could at least say thanks.

They stood there. Saren wore his stone-face, obviously determined to make this as difficult as possible. After a while, Nihlus gave up and instead took a closer look at the kid, who still stared about like a victim of an alien abduction. He thought he recognized the “toy”.

“Is that what I think it is?”

“Don’t ask.”

Nihlus chuckled, then cleared his throat, waiting for Saren to make a move, in vain. “Aren’t you going to introduce us?”

With a grunt of annoyance in his subvocals, Saren crouched. “Nihlus, this is Eleni.”

Nihlus crouched too, so he could look the girl in the eyes. He gave her the best smile he could muster. “Hello.”

“Eleni, this is my friend, Nihlus. You must listen to him and do what he says, alright? The same as if it were me.”

The girl said nothing, nor gave any indication that she had registered being spoken to. She was still looking around anxiously, never quite making eye contact. In fact, Nihlus now wondered if she could see and hear at all. In answer to his quizzical look, Saren just sighed and shook his head.

“I guess I know why you’re late,” Nihlus muttered, getting up.

“Yes.” Saren stood as well and leaned closer for privacy. “I don’t know what to do with her. We can’t leave her alone.”

“We won’t, then.”

“But—”

“Saren, there’s no time. Kids are tough—she’ll get over it. Come on.”

Obviously unconvinced, Saren nodded reluctantly and they stepped through the airlock.

“Good idea,” Saren said, approaching the hoverbed Nihlus had set up in the middle of the commons. Elethea lay on it, unconscious. “More space here.”

“I gave her more medigel on the way. Half the full dose. And one full dose on Cyone. Look.” Suddenly nervous, Nihlus wiped his hands on the cold plate of his leg armor before lifting the blanket to uncover Elethea’s left side. She was in underwear. He had stripped off her light armor, which had already been in shreds when he found her. Her stomach was distended, and the swelling was ominously bruised. He glanced at the girl. She was looking towards her mother, but the bed hovered above turian waist-height, so she couldn’t see the extent of her injuries. Thank Spirits for small favors.

Saren had put down the bag and now he took off his robe too. He started circling the hoverbed, holding up his omni to take a full medical scan. Nihlus had already taken one, and sent it during the call, but he trusted Saren had good reasons to redo it. Better hardware, more recent software. Nihlus was more of a weapons and armor kind of guy; Saren liked the gadgets.

“Was she awake when you found her?”

“Only briefly. She spoke gibberish, like in a fever. Wouldn’t surprise me. They kept her in some rank cell, deep inside the ruins. Dark and damp and cold. Looked like she’d been there a while.”

Saren’s mandibles pressed closer, but he didn’t volunteer any information on when they had lost contact, or how long she had been undercover. Nihlus took the silence as an invitation to continue his report.

“The place was guarded heavily, but not too intelligently. Like they were expecting a frontal assault.” He suspected either Elethea or Saren, or both, had had a hand in that, but he knew better than to ask. “I found a disused tunnel that goes practically right under the cell block, starting two kilometers outside the camp. Only guarded at the entry point.” He shook his head, remembering. “I hate fighting biotics. But it was the first and the last fighting I had to do. Well, other than the bots inside the prison. They looked a bit like Eclipse assets.” He paused, hoping for an explanation or at least some speculation from Saren, but he didn’t bite. 

“If it was that easy,” he said instead, “why did it take so long?”

Nihlus coughed. “Easy? I didn’t say it was _easy_. I’ll admit it was _easier_ than it would’ve been if I didn’t have her locator frequency. But that tunnel? It was flooded with foul water. Chest-deep, in some places neck-deep.” He shuddered, reliving the fresh memory. “I had to dig through three cave-ins—in chest-deep water—and later build _a raft_ for Elethea, so she wouldn’t freeze to death. Because her armor was anything but airtight. Oh, and she was unconscious. In case you forgot.”

“Sometimes,” Saren said calmly, still focused on the scan or whatever the hell he was looking at on his omni, “a frontal assault is faster.”

That stung. “Really, Saren? You’re going to give me shit—”

“Shit!” the girl echoed in a shrill voice, making them both jump. Nihlus had all but forgotten about her. She was still at the spot where Saren had deposited her, repeatedly turning the thresher toy about its long axis and staring at it with hooded eyes. Looking up at Saren, Nihlus made an _oops, my bad_ face. Predictably, Saren shook his head with inexhaustible disapproval.

“You should be thanking me, is what I’m saying,” Nihlus went on lamely. “Instead of criticizing me for taking the safest route, for once. You made me promise, remember?”

“Relax, Nihlus. I wasn’t serious.”

“Oh.” _Lame, lame, lame is my middle name._

“Come see this.”

The medical scan on Saren’s omni was indeed much more detailed than the one Nihlus had taken earlier. He frowned at the outlines of Elethea’s anatomy. Alien, yet familiar enough, and equally difficult to decipher as his own when he was forced to treat injuries in the field. As close as he could tell, the internal bleeding was caused by a spleen rupture. Seen often enough after biotic trauma: getting lifted and dropped, slammed against walls, charged into—that sort of thing. Of course, it was entirely possible to cause it with the usual kind of beating too.

“Yeah?” he said, unsure what Saren wanted him to say or do.

“The medigel practically stopped the bleeding. There’s just a trickle left. See?” He pointed at a particularly bright clump under her heart. “Another dose, in a few hours, should take care of it.”

“But what of the blood she’s lost already? That bruise—”

“The swelling and bruising are from the trauma, not from the bleeding. Two cracked ribs,” he pointed at the scan, “there, and there. But they’re healing already.”

“But she was incoherent when I found her. Blood loss—”

“It’s not that dramatic. Look at her cell counts.”

Nihlus looked. The panel was mostly green, with a few items in the yellow, but none were orange or red. “Huh. So, uh… you’re saying I panicked? She was never in danger?”

“I wouldn’t go that far. Without the medigel, she’d probably be dead.”

“Dead!” the girl exclaimed, gaze still fixed on the toy. She was turning it faster and faster.

“Yes, Eleni,” Saren replied, thwarting Nihlus’s plan to mirror the disapproving gesture at him as soon as their eyes met. “Your mother would be dead if not for Nihlus. He saved her from the bad people who took her. We should thank him.” He looked straight at Nihlus and spoke, as far as it was possible to tell, with perfect candor. “Thank you, Nihlus.”

“Thank you, Nihlus,” the girl repeated, mimicking not just the words, but the tone and the cadence too. She didn’t look up, though, nor paused her strange, dizzying game.

Nihlus stared at one, then the other, completely thrown off. “You’re welcome.”

#

A loud bang made him jump. Shots fired? No, something heavy had fallen on the bare metal floor. He blinked the sleep out of his sticky eyes in time to see Saren hurry toward the hoverbed. The girl was already there, clinging to the side on the tips of her toes. A muted extranet report from the batarian capital ran on the projector, showing scenes of violence in the streets as the growingly organized protestors engaged the police in a bloody melee. And there was the thresher toy, rolling on the floor in front of the projector. Of course. It had the consistency of solid rock.

“What’s up?”

“She’s waking,” Saren said.

Nihlus glanced at his omni. Wow. His “quick nap” turned into nearly two hours of sound sleep. He hadn’t noticed the exhaustion creeping up on him until it knocked him flat out. Typical.

Approaching the hoverbed, he saw that Elethea’s eyes were still shut.

“She’s awake,” Eleni said, never taking her eyes off her mother, but apparently addressing Nihlus. “You can tell from her breathing. And from her eye movement.”

So, she could speak after all. Nihlus raised his browplates and glanced at Saren, but he seemed equally puzzled. Following the voice, Elethea’s hand slowly felt its way to the top of Eleni’s head, and a smile lifted her cheeks.

Saren crouched and spoke to the kid. “I will lift you on the bed. But you need to stay still. Your mother was hurt and she’s not well yet. Do you understand?”

Elethea muttered something that sounded like… _go to the same time_? Nihlus frowned. Busy setting the girl up on her mother’s good side, Saren hadn’t noticed. The mother and daughter, finally together again, hugged. Tears streamed down Elethea’s cheeks. “Looking for a bottle, with a moose,” she said.

Now Saren frowned too. “Are you thirsty?”

Elethea shook her head weakly. Her arm trembled from the effort to keep her girl in a tight embrace. It would take a while for the effects of medigel to clear completely.

“Hungry?”

She shook her head again. “A magazine of a man on the floor.”

“Translator malfunction?” Nihlus suggested, scratching the back of his neck. “It was the same when I picked her up.”

Hearing a stranger’s voice, Elethea labored to open her eyes and look around. She licked her parched lips. “I don’t want to be a good idea.”

“We can’t understand you,” Saren said. “Your translator might be broken. No, no—don’t get upset,” he hurried to add when she abruptly tried to sit up, eyes suddenly round and frightened, unknown surroundings registering at last and memories starting to return in untidy chunks. Nihlus knew what it was like. He’d been there more times than he cared to recount. “You’re safe. We’re on my ship, orbiting the Citadel. Whatever’s wrong, we’ll fix it. Calm down.” He put a hand on her covered knee and gave it a gentle squeeze. Nihlus felt odd, seeing it. He had never seen Saren extend that kind of gesture to anyone else. But then, he had never seen Saren in the company of another truly close friend. Benezia didn’t count.

“I steal through the omnigel,” Elethea said. From the sound and rhythm, that could’ve been for, _I’m still groggy_. But it could’ve also been, _don’t worry about me_ , or an infinity of other things. Noticing their bafflement, she shook her head, then nodded to indicate she understood.

“This is Nihlus,” Saren continued, pointing with his chin. “He was the one to rescue you from Cyone.”

Elethea looked at him, smiled, and more tears tumbled out of her eyes. “A bit in the water now.”

He smiled back. That was almost certainly a _thank you_ , but he didn’t want to confuse her by replying to it directly. “It’s good to finally meet you,” he said instead. “I wish it was under better circumstances, but—”

She nodded, extending a hand toward him.

“I don’t think—” Saren said, but it was too late. Nihlus had already stepped closer to the hoverbed and touched Elethea’s cold, sweaty palm. And immediately staggered back, as if something had punched him in the chest.

It happened sometimes, though it was by no means common, and he had only experienced it once or twice before. When feverish, drugged or deeply distressed, asari could lose full control over their telepathic abilities and initiate a meld inadvertently. If one could even call it a meld. In a flash, Nihlus saw some scrambled images from her recent memory: the dungeon where she had been kept, masked jailors looming over her, her crumpled little reflection in the visor of his own helmet. But it wasn’t that which shocked him. It was the sense of a dreadful, unspeakable violation.

Covering his mouth with the back of his hand, he stumbled out of the commons, down the stairs, and into the little bathroom, where he dry-heaved over the toilet while tears blurred his vision. Elethea’s confused utterances and Eleni’s high-pitched protests, contesting with the rumble of Saren’s voice, barely reached him, as if he were submerged under water. His head pounded with the heavy beats of his heart. What the fuck? What the flying fuck?

“What happened?” Saren said, echoing his own thoughts. He stood at the door, then knelt on the tiled floor and laid his hands on Nihlus’s shuddering shoulders. “What’s wrong?

Nihlus couldn’t speak. He could barely keep from erupting in all-out sobs as wild shivers shook his whole body. A regular scene from their early days that hadn’t reoccurred in so many years now he’d all but forgotten how often he used to be like this. Triggered somehow by safety rather than peril, tenderness rather than brutality, he’d fall apart after almost every encounter. And Saren would hold him, silent and patient, never questioning, never judging. He’d rock him from side to side—just like this—until the trembling stopped, and his body was his again, spirit freed from the grip of nameless fears.

“It’s not a translator glitch,” he finally managed to say.


	4. Mental Encryption

Saren was soon assured it was true. Elthe’s own omnitool couldn’t make sense of her voice commands any more than he and Nihlus. The dark suspicions about the origin of her aphasia kept his gut in a constant twist but he had to remain clear-headed. Asking about it directly would only retraumatize her. And he couldn’t ask about her mission directly either with Nihlus within earshot. He hated that he’d been forced to involve either of them. And the child too. Damn child, and damn Elthe for having one!

_Calm down. You’re better than that._

He rolled his neck, waiting for the water to boil. Tea for the adults, a savory snack—jerky of some sort—for the child. He had to admit that, minus the hiding, Eleni was as good as a child could get. She didn’t yell and run around, knocking things off. She didn’t crave attention and could entertain herself for hours unattended. She preferred news to children’s cartoons and spoke rarely enough to make even Saren look verbose in comparison. If he had to pick a child, that’s the kind of child he’d pick.

Nihlus, on the other side…he had always been a handful. Helpful, yes, but high maintenance. He was still recovering from the shock of the accidental meld with Elthe, his skin ashen, his demeanor uncharacteristically quiet. Saren had interrogated him shortly after the experience, hoping to avoid the need of subjecting to it himself, but he learned nothing. All Nihlus could recollect were random images and feelings, no landmarks, names or faces. If it were anyone else, Saren would press them until he squeezed every last iota of intel out of their memory. But he couldn’t press Nihlus in his present condition. It would only raise suspicion.

He hated dancing around other people’s weaknesses. Face your damn fears! Grab them by the throat, strangle and bury them. Paying them respect will only nurture them, make them grow and gain even more power over you. Bah!

The small cube of levo-sugar intended for Elthe’s cup crumbled between his fingers and he almost cursed aloud. Damn it all to hell and back! The urge to pound his fists on the kitchen things was almost too strong to resist.

“Thanks,” Nihlus murmured, taking his cup. Elthe just nodded. Eleni was too busy pacing between the viewports on the opposite sides of the commons in some strange game only she could understand, to even notice the plate he offered. Saren left it near the projector. At last he settled too; Nihlus had dragged both barstools from the kitchen so that they could sit near the hoverbed. His bones ached with exhaustion and his implants were charged for the headache of the century. He sipped his tea gingerly.

“They are forced to retreat for a small priest,” Elthe said after a minute of silence. “I think it’s the towel to meet. I wrote it on the black door.”

Saren studied her for a while, unsure if she would continue. The dark facial markings made her face seem unfamiliar. She must’ve had them done as camouflage against accidental recognition. Hardly something that could stand up to scrutiny by another asari who knew her, but enough to hide her identity in a crowd. They could’ve easily fooled Saren if he didn’t know better.

“They,” he repeated at last. “The Athamists?”

She shook her head. “A small black and white man.”

“The priest?”

She shook her head again, frustration wrinkling her forehead. “A small room with a black shirt and a white dress.”

“A room with a black door? Were you supposed to meet someone there? A small man?” He was feeling the frustration too. What was small to an asari? “A volus?”

“A small wooden table and a baby and a man and a woman and coffee music at the end of the building. Black and white, ill of like.” She was about to cry again, eyes already filling with tears. “I don’t want to right the special time and become him.”

“It’s ok,” Nihlus said. “Take it easy. Let’s all take it easy, yeah?”

Saren grunted into his tea. She had started it. But Nihlus was right; pushing wasn’t going to work. Elthe’s speech seemed to get worse when she was upset.

“How about we ask you some yes-no questions,” Nihlus said. “For starters.”

Elthe nodded, wiping her cheeks.

“Just now… were you asking about Eleni?”

Her face brightened with an excited smile and she nodded enthusiastically. “On a mountain! A circle of envelopes on the hill!”

Of course. What was small to a mother? The child. That she would enquire about her daughter first, and not the mission, also made sense, in that parallel universe where there was a logic to emotional decisions. Not something Saren would’ve come up with offhand.

“Alright,” Nihlus said, tiredly smiling back. His subvocals betrayed a deep exhaustion, the kind that called for weeks of vacation, not a couple hours of napping. But Elthe didn’t know him well enough to notice. “How about… Saren tells us how their day together was, hm? I know I’ve been dying to hear about it.”

He was apparently reading Elthe’s mind—perhaps in consequence of the meld? She kept nodding at his every word and now she made a begging gesture in Saren’s direction. “Huge water? Mountain and nest.”

“Nothing to report,” he said and shrugged. What was there to say? The girl was here and obviously didn’t lack a blade from her crest. But Elthe’s bright, expectant expression softened his resolve. “I went there as soon as I got your message. Lethas and Farra sedated her for the journey. Don’t worry,” he said in reply to her anticipated concern. “They won’t be easy to find.” The aged salarian, Lethas, was ex STG; and Ferra was a huntress, one of Nerada’s chosen, young by asari standards but likely more experienced than Nihlus. Saren wished he could’ve taken her with him too. But it was safer to split. Both caretakers had left Elthe’s home on Thessia carrying a fake child of their own, to fool the surveillance.

“She slept till mid-morning,” he continued, leaving out the part where he had left her for two hours unattended while he made the obligatory appearance at the human embassy reception. “When she woke, she tried to hide from me, at first. But eventually she dressed on her own and ate her breakfast. She’s been very good,” he added in the end, thinking it a thing a parent might want to hear.

And indeed, the short report seemed to have made Elthe disproportionately happy. She clutched at the string of her bra over her heart and her eyes were full of tears again—tears of joy, this time, or relief, or love. A good feeling, Saren decided, giving up the effort to name it. Whatever trauma she’d been through, combined with the drug-like aftereffects of the large doses of medigel, made her unusually emotional. He’d never seen her cry before, even during the crisis surrounding Nerada’s death.

“He was going to be a bit of a man who was going to be a bit of the same,” Elthe said. She’d forgotten that they wouldn’t understand. Remembering, she used her hands to mime Eleni’s repetitive game with the thresher toy.

“Oh,” Saren said. He exchanged a panicked glance with Nihlus. “That’s a—"

“—trophy,” Nihlus jumped in. “A thresher maw—”

“—tooth.” Saren cleared his throat. “Harmless. Also, priceless, but she won’t be able to damage it.”

“Hmm.” Elthe looked suspiciously at one, then the other. “He was in a large room with a small way for the water.” For a moment she awaited a reply, then lifted her hands to signal that it didn’t matter.

Nihlus made a show of tipping his empty cup upside down over his face. When he stood up to stretch, crumbs of caked mud and dried blood fell out of his suit’s joints and peppered the floor. He gave Saren a mortified look, but Saren shook his head. It hardly mattered. The place was a mess either way.

Elthe watched the exchange with a lopsided smile. It was fair to assume that many people suspected Saren and Nihlus were more than friends, but she was among the very few who _knew_ it. And she had been eager to witness it for years. “Go to a sea to lose him,” she said. “Concluded it by speaking loudly, but I’ve been cutting many things.”

When neither of them tried to turn it into a conversation, her cheer subsided. She leaned back and closed her eyes with a long sigh. Meanwhile, Nihlus had taken all their empty cups to the kitchen. Glancing sideways, Saren saw that the girl had finally stopped pacing; she now stood at the starboard viewport and stared out at the darkness around them, rocking back and forth on her heels. He used to do this as a child too. Stare through the windows for hours, not really _seeing_ , and weave his elaborate daydreams. Her snack lay untouched where he had left it.

Nihlus squeezed his shoulder. The touch lingered long enough for the warmth to pass through layers of clothing and remind him of their brief, incomplete encounter in the dark of the hallway last night. Something stirred inside him: not quite desire, not quite guilt. Rather a sudden and immense fatigue. He was tired of wearing his myriad masks. One for Nihlus, one for Elthe, one for every person of any import in his life. Only Sovereign saw him unmasked. Saren shuddered. He wondered what it was like: his true self. He had no idea.

Sensing his tension, Nihlus retreated. “Eleni?” he said as he crouched next to the girl. “Saren probably didn’t tell you,” he continued in a conspiratorial whisper, “but we have a _tank_ down in the hangar. A TMV8900X, no less. More commonly known as the _Rhino_. Would you like to see it?”

“Eleni?” Elthe said when the girl made no sign of noticing she had been spoken to. She reacted to the sound of her mother’s voice, though, and turned around to cast a furtive glance in the direction of the hoverbed. “It’s going to be the arm. Drunk doing laundry.”

“Yes, mama,” the girl said, as if she understood perfectly. Nihlus looked at Saren, a question in his eyes, and Saren looked at Elthe, but drifting in and out of a drowse, she didn’t seem to register anything out of the ordinary.

“Alright, then,” Nihlus said. “Off we go.”

As they left the commons, the girl’s hand obediently hooked around Nihlus’s talon, Saren silently thanked him.

“I say this remembering it isn’t in the same dream,” Elthe said.

Saren regarded her, unable to stop himself from trying to decipher her words. They almost made sense. To someone else, outside their conversation, they might sound like normal speech. He shook his head. “Do you know how this happened?” he said. “The aphasia.”

A pained expression wrinkled her face. She bobbed her head from side to side, neither a yes nor a no.

“You’re not sure?”

She nodded.

“Was it drugs?”

She shook her head.

“Something they did to you.”

She turned away from his stare. Stupid question. Of course it was _something they did to her_. He even had an idea what that _something_ was. He had done his homework on the ancient asari torture methods practiced by the Athamists, each one a different flavor of deranged and ingenious, an art of turning brutality to subtlety and the other way around. A fresh wave of anger arose in him, both at the invisible enemy and at himself. She wouldn’t have done it if not for his insisting. Perhaps a decade ago, before she was a parent, her own curiosity and her unwavering sense of justice would’ve been enough. As it was, he had needed to call upon every available resource to persuade her. Because they both knew what kind of risks it would entail.

The most important question now, was if it had been worth it. His pulse quickened. “Did you succeed? Do you know where it is?”

She gave him a long, heavy look. Her bloodshot eyes were wet with tears once more. She nodded. But then, just as Saren sighed with relief, she shook her head and buried her face in her hands, sobbing.

No longer able to hold back, he went to her side. “Yes _and_ no—but what does that mean?” His thoughts raced in a dozen threads, each trying to outshout the others with its dark predictions, but he could only voice one at a time. “Did you learn the location, but it’s inaccessible? Lost, somehow, like Ilos?” But how could that be? They knew it was on Thessia. “Buried in some ruin? Or damaged? Destroyed?” She kept shaking her head. “Or did they take you to it, but you don’t know the actual location?” Even without a location, the confirmation that the Athamists were hiding a functioning prothean beacon would count as success. “Did you see it? Did you _touch_ it?”

“It would be?” she cried, raising her hands to ward off his advance. “A freeway where she isn’t going, and the other once can be the same man, my father and a resort and fields in the water. Heavens!”

“Alright.” He took a step back. He had unwittingly crowded her, getting into her face and yelling like she was some lowlife criminal. “Alright. I’ll slow down.” And he tried, taking a deep breath, but his heart was beating hard and fast and would not be placated. He had toiled and waited for this for decades. “Was that a yes?” He had to know. “Did you see it?”

She huffed in annoyance, then finally nodded. “She says she has a large piece of the door. Oh, for week and ship.” She pointed at her eyes. _Yes, I saw it_. She then rubbed her many, thin fingers against her thumbs and shook her head. _No, I didn’t touch it_.

Saren exhaled. “Good.” He inhaled. He couldn’t seem to get enough air. “We can work with this. At least it wasn’t for nothing. All this.” He pointed awkwardly at her broken form. “I’m going to find it, and I’m going to find _them_ , and I’m going to skin every last one of them alive.” His chest ached. He needed space. He needed to hit something hard enough to break skin and bone.

He turned away from her and went to the starboard viewport, then paced to the port one, and back, and again, retreading the girl’s steps. So, it was true. There was a prothean beacon on Thessia. Practically in plain sight, compared to some of the places he’d searched. Oh, they had suspected it for a long time, but it was still a shock, to know it with certainty. He’d have to tell Benezia. But not before he learned the location too, or there’d be no end to her mockery.

“The people are going in,” Elthe said after a while, interrupting his intense focus. “They’re trying to see the back of the river. But I’m happy to sit on it. Like a door.”

“I need the location,” Saren replied. Approaching the bed again, he brought up the globe of Thessia, half a meter wide, on his omni. “Show me.”

Elthe sighed and shook her head, but before the globe made half a turn, she spun it back. Then the other way around. As she frowned, concentrating, her lips formed silent words, like trying to taste the names of different places for a matching flavor. Saren held his breath.

But after a while, she threw herself back on the pillows in a show of defeat. “It’s a big one, that feeling.”

“You can’t remember.”

She shook her head to confirm. “I’m seated in the room with a woman who’s holding the door.” She sounded exhausted, and when she looked at Saren there was that deep, dark tranquility to her stare again, a resignation, an acceptance. Surrender?

He wouldn’t have it. “If I must list every place and permutation of possible outcomes so you can confirm or deny it, so be it. Anything would be faster than searching Thessia on foot. Now that they know _we know_ , they might move it, or even destroy it to prevent us from revealing the truth to the public. I know you’re scared and tired,” he said in a softer tone. “If you need to rest, we can go on later. But we must go on.”

Her gaze turned inwards as she weighed his words. The antique analog clock counted the seconds of arrested silence with infinite patience, its ticks getting louder and louder until Saren could hardly bear it. But then Elthe reached some decision and moved at last—to offer him her hand.

It was Saren’s turn now to ponder. If he accepted, there’d be no hiding from his own guilt for inflicting on her whatever horrors she was about to share.

 _Face your damn fears_!

He swallowed and took it.


	5. Before the Storm

They sat in the cockpit with the lights turned down. A sparse scattering of lonesome stars blinked through the hazy glow of the nebula. At sublight, Nihlus thought, they could travel for ten years before the starscape changed in any perceptible way. It was always comforting to remember the vastness and utter disinterest of space. Their ship was but a speck of dust; the two of them, a couple of moderately complex molecules in it; and their many concerns and duties and memories and feelings were nothing. Nothing at all.

Nihlus rolled his head to look at Saren. He too stared through the viewport at the pink and purple mist, his hands hanging limply from the armrests. No one had said a word in minutes. It was more than sheer exhaustion, though there was plenty of that too. An oppressive air filled the Virial and no amount of filtering and recycling could drive it out. The urgency, the secrecy, the blame not yet placed, the indecision, so unlike Saren—it felt like they moved not at sublight, but at sub-snail, struggling through a sea of sticky, clingy jelly.

At least they were alone for now, and free of concern for their strange guests. Elethea needed rest, and Eleni quietly complied to being left alone in the cabin, behind the door that Saren discreetly locked behind her. Nihlus might have raised some objections to that if he hadn’t spent the better part of the evening searching the hangar for her. The Rhino had failed to capture her interest and after tolerating Nihlus’s lame attempts to provide entertainment for a while, she slipped out so quietly he only realized she was gone minutes later. Thank the Spirits for the thermal scanner, or he would’ve never found her. She had crawled into a disused exhaust pipe, a part of a temperature-regulation system made obsolete by the heat sink that had been installed in the long year after Nihlus’s induction. Pulling her out had left him breathless with panic and effort, but she seemed no worse for wear, with only a few specks of engine grime on her hands and crest and deep blue leggings. Thankfully, Saren and Elethea had taken their sweet time, leaving Nihlus plenty of room to cover his tracks.

“Did you manage to debrief her?” he said.

Saren didn’t reply at once. Sometimes it took him a while to register questions. Or perhaps just to deign answering them. “After a fashion.”

“With yes-no questions?”

“She offered to meld.”

“Ah.” He had guessed it would come to that. “Then you saw what happened to her.”

Another long pause. “I suppose.”

Nihlus waited for more, frustration mounting, until it became clear Saren would not elaborate. “Can you please explain it to me? ‘Cos I sure don’t understand. What did they _do_ to her, to jumble her mind like that? What kind of twisted…”

No. Trying to put the experience into words again was really the last thing he needed right now. He swallowed and turned away to look out the viewport again, just as Saren finally turned to look at him. Neither had the energy to even lift their heads from the headrests.

“Forced melding,” Saren said. “We’ve seen it before. Granted, not with such consequences. This was surgically precise. They kept her alive for the exchange but made sure she couldn’t share whatever secrets she had learned. Barbaric, but effective.”

“It sounds like you admire them. Surgically precise?” He looked Saren in the eye. “It felt like rape to me.”

“Yes.” Saren held his stare. It had been difficult enough to read him before he had his eyes replaced with implants, but it was near impossible now. “It’s unfortunate you witnessed that. I had to, but you didn’t.”

Nihlus huffed. “It’s unfortunate that it happened in the first place. Who _are_ these people? What do they want?” A flash of memory struck him like a disruptor round, making him jolt. “Those masks they wore. They looked like the Collectors. With them insect eyes and all. Is there a connection?”

“I don’t think so,” Saren said after some consideration. He rolled his head straight. “But you make a good point. The similarity is undeniable.” For a while, his mandibles worked in silence. “Obviously, I don’t know half as much about the Athamists as I’d like. I resorted to putting an agent in because I was out of options. But it was a mistake. Not just because Elthe suffered. All my networks in asari space have gone silent. That’s nine good operatives, not counting the locals. Some of them will be difficult to replace. Three had families.” His hands curled into fists, then slowly uncurled. “I underestimated the enemy. If you’ll take another lesson from your old mentor—” he looked at Nihlus again— “take that: you can never be too cautious.”

“I know,” Nihlus breathed. _There’s no such thing as paranoia_ , was the way Saren had put it in the past. _If you’re feeling safe, you’re missing something obvious_ ; and half a dozen other formulations. Slowly, as if approaching a cornered animal, Nihlus stretched his arm till their talons touched, and then, as there was no recoil, he took Saren’s hand. It was warm and dry and comfortingly familiar. “I know, my love.”

Sitting at an arm’s length, Saren was still light years away. A full minute passed before he reacted and felt Nihlus’s hand in return.

“Is she going to recover?” Nihlus asked.

“Probably. With time. And with help.”

He knew better than to ask if Elethea’s mission had been successful; Saren had already said more than Nihlus could’ve hoped for. He wanted to ask about the kid, though. At one point, earlier, it seemed like Eleni could understand her mother despite all the wrong words. He wanted to ask about Eleni’s obvious weirdness, and a dozen other things. But it would have to wait. Saren’s hold on his hand turned into a gentle tug. Eager as ever, Nihlus left his post and with a stripper’s move—one leg stretched high and swishing through the air to make a circle above the pilot chair—straddled Saren’s lap.

He had taken a shower and changed into a tracksuit, but Saren was still in the same attire Nihlus had tried to peel off him last night. He didn’t mind. The musky scent of Saren’s unwashed skin was a rare delicacy. His hands rested on Nihlus’s hips, then moved upward to feel his waist. Nihlus got busy undoing the shiny clasps and hidden buttons that kept Saren’s neck and collar out of sight.

“I’m not sure—” Saren started, but Nihlus had planned it all out long before.

“The door’s locked. All your fancy motion sensors are on: we’ll know if anyone takes to moonwalking. And we can be quiet.” He stole a nip behind Saren’s mandible. “If we have to.” He decided that Saren’s grunt was a kind of laugh. “And if you’d rather not think about it…” Straightening up, he brought up his omni and executed the sound-proofing app he had stolen from the C-Sec library the other week. “There. With this on, you can moan your heart out and ain’t no one gonna be the wiser for it.”

Saren did laugh now, in his abrupt, clipped manner that was more like a cough or choking. But Nihlus loved it. Spirits, he loved everything about him. The grip on his back, still uncertain, the barely perceptible grind of his hips, shyly looking for friction. Nihlus felt like crying. Not with joy or sadness but just the sudden, pure intensity of sensation and emotion. Yeah, he used to be like this early on a lot. It wasn’t a thing he recalled often or gladly but he used to cry after lovemaking, sometimes even in the middle of it. What the fuck, right? He’d hide it as best as he could but Saren always saw through him.

That hadn’t changed. “You’re still upset,” he rumbled softly.

“Looks like it.” Nihlus tried to laugh it off. “I’m sorry. I don’t feel bad, just—”

“Don’t be sorry.”

Nihlus nodded, then rested his forehead on Saren’s till his eyes were dry again and his attention moved on from his racing heart to his aching groin. They kissed, and Saren’s light touch turned into a steady pressure on his lower back, pulling him closer. When he looked in his artificial eyes now, Nihlus had no trouble reading the desire in them, an almost feral and not altogether healthy craving.

Being the self-centered, blind ass-cheek he had always been, he had forgotten that Saren too was stressed, likely far more than he, and upset, yes, even if it wasn’t showing. He swallowed. “Would you like to lead?”

Saren shook his head. His mouth opened, but no words came out, just a gasp for air. He shook his head again, as if to confirm. “I can’t,” he whispered at last. “I need… I need you to—”

“Hush.” Nihlus rubbed his face against the side of Saren’s neck, inhaling him. “I got you.”

“Take them out if you want,” Saren said, turning his head all the way to the left to expose the biotic amp slot behind the jaw.

“Ooooh.” An unexpected treat. Nihlus bit his mandible in concentration while he detached the amp. The prickly sensation it caused in his talons was neither pleasant nor unpleasant, but he loved it. “Where do I put it?”

“Just drop it on the board.”

Nihlus lowered it on the glossy, squeaky-clean surface of the ship’s control panel, _gently_. The other one wasn’t so kind and gave him a straight out little biotic shock. But he didn’t flinch, and neither did Saren. He loved it all. The pleasure, the pain, receiving, but most of all, giving.

“What are you going to do with that?” Saren asked as Nihlus slowly tugged the headscarf from behind his horns.

“The only thing it’s good for.”


	6. Out of Options

In the early hours of the morning, Elthe awoke and insisted to use the bathroom and take a shower on her own. She would not be dissuaded. Saren had zero authority over her and all he could do was pace in front of the bathroom door, waiting for the inevitable bump when she could no longer keep herself upright. It didn’t come, but she collapsed in his arms as soon as she reemerged.

They set her up in the cabin, then. Tiny as it was, the cot there was still more comfortable than the hoverbed; plus, that way they could use the rest of the ship without disturbing her. Saren needed to make a call from the conferencing projector in the commons. A call he dreaded but could no longer postpone. The anxiety made him irritable and disagreeable: bitchy, as Nihlus would surely put it if not for the child on board. But their last night’s encounter pacified him unproportionally and he grinned like an idiot all morning, even when Saren asked him to stay in the cockpit for an hour, playing games or whatever he did in his free time when the gym was unavailable.

Saren wished sex had such an effect on him. Or drink, or drugs. When he faced an unpleasant duty—and all his duties were unpleasant—nothing could take the edge off.

He paced in front of the projector for five minutes, trying to center himself. He was unused to failure. When he finally made the call, they told him to wait, so he paced for another five minutes, feeling the buildup of pointless anger. It would only undermine his efforts to remain in control, but he couldn’t stop it. He was unused to waiting, too.

“I came as quick as I could,” Benezia said, and there was indeed a hint of short breath in her voice. Saren took in her elegant figure. It was strange to see her wearing such vivid colors, and nothing on her head. She carried an empty glass. A dark, viscous residue betrayed its missing contents as Fonore plum liquor; a blush on her cheeks and abundant cleavage betrayed that she’d had more than that one glass of it. She seemed to be attending a party. “I fear you will have to be brief,” she added when he didn’t respond immediately. “I cannot stay long.”

“Elethea is back,” he said. He wished he had the power of telepathy himself right now, and the ability to use it at a distance, like a Reaper. It was going to take so many words to explain the situation. Words he didn’t want to say or hear.

“Something went wrong,” Benezia said, her eyes widening in alarm. Some telepathy did exist between them. But it wasn’t going to suffice. “Was she discovered?”

Saren nodded.

“Goddess.” She put a hand over her mouth. “Were _we_?”

“I don’t believe so. I sent Nihlus to extract her. He doesn’t know anything,” he hurried to add, foreseeing her next question. “Elthe can’t speak. They have… damaged her, somehow. She seems perfectly lucid but she’s aphasic. Talks nonsense. This is why I called. To seek your wisdom and help with this, if you can spare any.” He gave up staring at the floor to look in her eyes. “I don’t know how to retrieve what she learned.”

“Have you tried melding with her?”

Heat rushed up Saren’s neck. “Only superficially.”

“You mean, hand-holding,” she said with that perfectly measured dose of condescension he could neither ignore nor be offended by.

“It was enough to find it’s not just her words that are nonsense. Her mind is scrambled. Her recent memories are dominated by the trauma. I couldn’t see through it. And neither can she.”

Benezia hummed. “I cannot recall anything similar. It is strangely specific, is it not? As if tailored to…” Her gaze had gone unfocused in contemplation, but now she fixed it on Saren with a sudden intensity. “Are you sure she has not done it herself?”

“What? Why?”

“To protect you,” Benezia said matter-of-factly. “She might have buried both the memories of her mission and her discoveries, if any, too deep for an invading mind to find.” She nodded, as if all the pieces were coming together to solve some puzzle that had appeared difficult at first but was now revealed to be embarrassingly simple. “The more I think about it, the more likely it seems. If I am correct, it is a testament to her loyalty and courage. But why did they not kill her once she made herself useless?”

Saren’s vision darkened by a shade. Elthe was not _useless_. Still struggling to process the idea that her strange condition was self-inflicted, he blurted out an answer before he could think it through. “I used a proxy to offer a prothean lens prism as ransom. But Nihlus managed to extract her before the exchange took place.”

“A prothean lens prism,” Benezia repeated slowly. She stepped closer to the camera, all traces of tipsy cheer gone from her demeanor. “Is that why you paid my daughter an unexpected—and unsanctioned—visit? To steal an artifact from her collection? How many times have I told you that I do not want her involved? What if the theft is blamed on her? What if it is somehow connected to you, and our endeavor, and me?”

“It will not.” Saren cursed himself for letting it slip. Liara was sacred grounds and treading on it had been a calculated risk. But now it was no longer a _risk_. It was acute danger. “If I’m good at something,” he said, “I’m good at covering my tracks. The choice I had was between hiring someone to do it, with unpredictable collaterals, and doing it myself. The latter option was safer. There was no option to _not_ do it or I would’ve obviously chosen that. I’m not stupid. I know your grudges last for decades.” He clenched his mandibles. “I apologize. It won’t happen again.”

“It better not.” With her chin held high and dark fury burning in her eyes, she was somehow perfectly able to look down on him even though he was taller than her by a head. “I expect the artifact will be returned. Undamaged. With a plausible explanation that will cause no further enquiry.”

“Of course. I had a plan for that before I took it. And another, in case it could _not_ be returned. I took every precaution. But you know as well as I that the only way to protect Liara from _our endeavor_ is to make her give up the fieldwork.”

“And you should know better than to give me parenting tips. You couldn’t raise a captive pyjack, let alone a child. Especially one this stubborn,” she added after a moment, perhaps realizing she might’ve gone too far. With an exhale, she shrunk back into her usual form. “Either way. Where were we?”

Saren cleared his throat, trying to clear his mind too. Her last remark stung, and now he found himself rehearsing the steps he had taken to keep Eleni safe, fed and rested for the night and the day she had been in his care. He suspected Benezia was entirely right, and he was the least suited man of his generation to ever raise children. But why would he care? And how was she so consistently able to tilt his balance?

“You were about to tell me how I’m to proceed with Elthe.”

“Is it not obvious? Meld with her. Fully.”

“I can’t. Not with…that purpose. It would be a breach. The same breach the Athamists have made.”

“Nonsense. Seek her consent. I am sure she will give it. Have you not slept together before?”

Saren swallowed the embarrassment. He had feared it would come to this. “Many years ago. But it is of no consequence. Even if she does agree, it would still be… exploitative.”

Benezia snorted. “And sending her among them to begin with was not? Did you not _exploit_ her affection for Nerada? Her desire for revenge? While keeping your true motives a secret? Please, Saren, do not waste my time. What is the real problem?”

“Is it not obvious?” he said, viciously mimicking her patronizing tone. “If we meld, and I reach these hidden depths of her mind—she will reach the hidden depths of _mine_.”

“Well…” She looked in her empty glass, then tipped it up above her mouth, trying to hide her confusion. Apparently, this had not occurred to her. “Do not show her,” she said at last. “Keep your… passion in check. It shouldn’t be an issue.”

“Perhaps for an asari. I don’t have that kind of control.”

Benezia’s omni buzzed. She hushed it without looking. “Perhaps you should let her see.” Glancing left and right as if to check if she could speak freely, she took another step toward the camera and spoke in a whisper. “You could take her on board the Sovereign. I am sure They would know how to get the information out of her. Elethea would make a powerful ally. And Goddess knows we could use all the help we can get.”

“What an excellent idea,” Saren squeezed through clenched teeth. “While we’re at it, let’s also take Nihlus and Liara for a tour of Their Benevolent Magnificence. The two of them would be even more valuable assets, don’t you think?”

He steeled himself for another venomous retort, but after a moment’s consideration, Benezia just nodded and stepped back. “I fear that is all the advice I can offer. If you will not take it…”

Saren rubbed his forehead, grasping for straws. “If you’re right, and she inflicted this condition on herself, there must be a way to reverse it. Psychological therapy? Medication? Meditation? She wouldn’t have done it otherwise. She has greater concerns than protecting my identity.”

“Such as?”

“Protecting her child.”

“Ah. I have forgotten about that.” Her eyes narrowed. “How old?”

“It’s not mine, if that’s what you’re thinking.” He growled with frustration. “Can’t you just answer my questions?”

“No, Saren, I cannot ‘just answer your questions’. I am not military, or one of your minions, to be ordered around.”

For a few moments, he stared at her motionlessly, still hung up on what she had insinuated. Eleni was… exactly seven years old. It was possible. And the similarities in character were certainly not lacking. They were even more pronounced now than two years ago, when he had first seen the girl. But that was easily explained by Elthe’s obsessive interest, both personal and professional, in people with atypical neurological makeups. No. She would’ve told him. This was just another cheap provocation. He deflated and shook his head.

After a while, Benezia heaved a long sigh. “Yes, her condition can probably be reversed. Whatever has caused this, modern asari psychiatry deals successfully with issues much more severe. But it would take months, at the very least. Possibly years. We cannot afford to wait that long. If we do not act _at once_ , it might all have been in vain.”

“I’m aware.”

“It would also be useful to learn how she was discovered. Names, Saren. The place is not enough, if we are to both get our prize and keep it. We need something we can use as leverage.”

“Yes.”

“You will do what needs to be done, then?”

Silence.

Benezia’s omni buzzed again, and this time, she checked the message. “I have to get back. Do not look at me that way. None of this is my fault. If you had asked me for advice _before_ things turned dire, I would have voted against sending a friend on a mission of such import.”

More silence.

“Really, Saren, I am certain most of your duties are much grimmer,” she went on with one arm squared at her hip, and the other waving the empty glass like a teaching requisite. “If you worry you will make her condition worse, allow me to assure you it is not likely. You may, in fact, be in a unique position to make it better. Melding with you might help her regain a portion of her cognitive integrity. Perhaps enough to enable rapid healing. You have been friends for a long time, and no matter how _many years_ pass, your nervous system still carries the imprint from your previous couplings. Think of that if you feel so squeamish.”

She scrounged her face in distaste and ended the transmission.

Saren stared at the void that took her place for several deep breaths, searching for his lost balance in vain. He was teeming with helpless anger. Had she been in the same room, he was sure he would’ve punched her smug face. Closing his eyes, he imagined with perfect clarity the snap of broken bone, the squish of cartilage beaten into a pulp, the spray of purple blood on his carapace. His chest ached.

His omni buzzed.

“You should get down here,” Nihlus wrote. “We have a problem.”


	7. Common Interest

When Saren entered the cabin, short of breath and pale as death, Nihlus thought he might soon find himself with not one, but two sick people on his hands. Agitated with that special flavor of frustration parents exhibit when they’re prevented from reaching their children, Elethea tried to shuffle her legs over the edge of the bed and get up the second time in as many minutes, cried in pain and threw herself back on the pillow, cursing in her gibberish dream-speak.

“For fuck’s sake,” Nihlus said. “Stay put! We’ll find her.”

“What’s happening?” Saren said, clutching the doorframe as if he was about to faint.

“The whole time the person is like a hotel of some sort,” Elethea said.

“I can’t find Eleni,” Nihlus said at the same time. “Elethea must’ve drowsed off and she slipped out of the cabin. I left the cockpit door open, but I didn’t hear a thing. Saren, I looked everywhere. I checked every damn corner, pipe and storage compartment. I scanned the whole ship. She’s nowhere to be found.”

“I tried to jump on a few different times because he can't believe my little university,” Elethea kept explaining in vain. “We lie on the stairs and look at the door and the path is the window to go home.”

“She can’t have gone out,” Saren said, ignoring her. “Did you check the car?”

“Yes. It’s the first place I looked.”

“Did you check _under_ the car?”

“Yes! And _on_ the car, and on every shelf in the hangar. I looked in the toolboxes too,” he admitted. “She’s not there.”

“What’s going to return to the right part of the house?” Elethea asked. For a moment, Nihlus was caught off guard, thinking her normal speech was back. But then she went on to add, “I don’t think that I don’t know. I can’t find the order!” She hit the mattress, then sniffed and took a deep breath. “Struggle with the knowledge of the water,” she said in a calmer tone, making a gesture like she wanted something from the desk.

Before Nihlus could wrap his mind around it, Saren stepped inside and fetched the datapad. He drew up the plan of the ship and handed the datapad to Elethea.

“Good idea,” Nihlus muttered as the two of them converged above the map, shoulder to shoulder. While Elethea turned and panned the plan, frowning at the tiny turian sigils, he noted a strange sound and, glancing sideways, caught Saren breathing through his mouth.

What was going on with him? He had been distant and grouchy since they woke, but whatever business he had conducted in the privacy of the emptied commons seemed to have drained the last bits of energy from him. It was strange to see him like that, tired and defeated. Just as it had been strange to see him drink, or ask for help, or for sex, like last night. Elethea must have meant a lot more to him than he ever let on, and even Nihlus, who took pride in being able to glimpse past Saren’s detachment, hadn’t realized just how much.

Based on near a decade of experience, Nihlus firmly believed that, one, Saren couldn’t possibly have any personal problems, as he practically had no life outside his work and their love affair; and two, if Saren ever _did_ have a personal problem, it would certainly not affect him the way such things affected common mortals. That he would plow through it with his signature force and determination, like he did through any other obstacle.

Well, guess what, Nihlus thought. I was wrong! At least _that_ was nothing to wonder about.

“Uh…” Elthe had been staring at the datapad for half a minute now. “It’s a rat, a hawk, a varren, a woman,” she said, irritated. “No candy. No mountain, no water.” She dropped the pad on the sheets and covered her face, shaking her head.

“You can’t read it,” Saren translated, with something uncomfortably close to despair in his subvocals. “Never mind. We’ll search on foot.”

Just as Nihlus was about to point out that he had done that already, something clanked; a metal thing dropping on the metal floor. “The commons,” he said, but Saren had already gone out and up the stairs.

Nihlus turned to give Elethea an apologetic look, but she gestured him to be on his way. “I know the dresses,” she said. “It is shaped still. Pray!”

He hurried after Saren, scaling the stairs three at a time. The commons were lit brightly, as if every possible light source had been turned on to the maximum, and he had to shield his eyes while he looked around. Saren crouched on one knee in the corner with the projector. Walking over, Nihlus saw that Eleni was there too, sitting on the floor and pulling apart a piece of her jerky snack from yesterday with her densely packed, little white teeth. She was watching a news report from Irune with rapped attention and paid no heed to the two worried turians hovering around her.

Nihlus puffed out a sigh of relief. “Thank the Spirits.” He turned about, wondering where she might’ve come out from, and spied another piece of the jerky on the floor near the kitchen counter. Another lay half a meter farther. Following the trail of evidence, he discovered the upturned metal plate next to the fridge and waved it in Saren’s direction.

Saren nodded and stood up with a grunt. He had gained more weight lately and Nihlus suspected it wasn’t all muscle.

“You didn’t do that, did you?” Nihlus pointed vaguely at the lights.

Saren shook his head, squinting.

“Where was she hiding?”

“The heat sink.” He sniffed loudly before Nihlus could ask what made him think so. And indeed, when he stepped closer, he could smell it too: the unmistakable phosphorous scent of the core coolant fluid.

“But I looked there.” The engine-room was locked by default and there was nowhere to hide near that door—apart from a ventilation shaft right under the ceiling. Which would, in truth, also hide the kid from the thermal scanner, but he had overruled it as far too high.

“Obviously you didn’t look close enough.”

“There’s nothing there to climb. I don’t see how she could’ve got in, unless she can fly.”

“Fly!” Eleni echoed, as if to confirm.

Saren was about to give him another piece of his mind on the subject, but Nihlus put a hand on his shoulder and patiently steered him toward the airlock and out of earshot. “This is no place for a kid,” he whispered. “Not only because of the dangers—she hides because she has nothing else to do. She must be bored out of her fucking mind.”

Saren’s gaze switched from his face to where Eleni was sitting and back, loaded with suspicion. Nihlus braced for, _which kid do you mean_? Or the more straight-forward, _you’re the one who’s bored_. But instead Saren said, “What do you suggest?”

“Let’s dock again. I’ll take her out for a tour of the Presidium. See the lake, the park, the zoo. Let Elethea get some rest and—"

“You’ve got some business there.”

“Well…yeah. I suppose so. Thought I’d run by the office and the human embassy. It’d be on the way. But that’s not why—”

“Can you run by Huerta’s too?”

Nihlus blinked. He had wound himself up to defend his picknick thesis from fervent objections and Saren’s sudden approval caught him off guard. “Uh… sure. Why?”

“The med unit is low on blood replacement foundation. I could have some delivered, but—”

“No problem.” Nihlus tried to maneuver his face in such a way as to make Saren look at him, with no success. “Hey.” Saren jerked his head away when Nihlus touched the tip of his mandible. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Saren said, giving him an annoyed glance. Nihlus could see sweat trickle down his neck. “Woke up with a headache,” he admitted after a moment. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

That explained a lot. Nihlus nodded, knowing better than to offer sympathy. “Can I help?”

“Taking the girl out will help.”

_And taking yourself out too_ , Nihlus could almost hear him thinking. Fair enough. He was long past feeling bad when Saren sought to be left alone. “Thought so.”

While Saren talked it out with Elethea and prepared a lunch-pack for the kid, Nihlus pondered on his own eagerness to get off the ship. He hadn’t even been aware of it before speaking to Saren. Was it jealousy? Because of Saren’s manifest concern about their guests and his history with Elethea? It didn’t feel like it. And usually he liked nothing better than getting bored, alone with Saren, on the Virial. Perhaps that was the problem? That they were not alone? But he didn’t mind having guests. He liked them. Elethea seemed to be someone worth knowing, and Eleni was a bundle of weirdly Saren-like cuteness.

“Do not, at any time, let go of her hand,” Saren instructed as they entered the airlock.

“Don’t worry—” and he swallowed _my love_ just in time. Glancing back, he thought Saren had heard it anyway. He looked like a thundercloud, about to smite him with lightning. “Agent Kryik is on the case. Right, Eleni?”

“Right!”


	8. The Deed

As the rented skycar sped away along the misty Citadel airway with Nihlus and Eleni tucked inside, Saren’s anxiety mounted. He retreated into the airlock, closed the outer hatch and locked it with a code Nihlus didn’t have. The ship was his, for the time. His and Elthe’s.

Once more, he went over it in his thoughts. The alternatives were only worse. If he did nothing and allowed Elthe the time to heal and remember on her own, the chances of finding the beacon again were nil, and her suffering in vain. And if it had to be done, it was indeed better that he did it than… someone else.

He shuddered. Blood was hot in his neck and cheeks, the sweat cold under his crest. His hands and feet were freezing. He took to pacing up and down the commons again.

Alright—say he would do it. But _how_? Someone like Nihlus would have no trouble with this sort of… task. But, not counting his calculated overtures with Sparatus, Saren had never seduced anyone in his entire life. He had only ever allowed himself to be seduced and he could hardly imagine that Elthe would be interested, in her current state, to do him the favor of seducing him again. And even if all of that was somehow… arranged. How was he, in _his_ current state, to muster an interest in sex? He had no interest in sex even in the best of times. Even with Nihlus, he almost never sought it himself—which wasn’t to say he didn’t enjoy it when it happened. Perhaps…

He stopped short and, with eyes closed, recalled their last night’s coupling, willing the sensory details to load from memory and wash over him again. Yes, that awoke desire. But it was too feeble to contend with the anxiety even for a fleeting moment. And it was a specific desire: for more of the same. Elthe could never play that role in his life. No one but Nihlus could.

That settled it, then. He would go down in history as the only man who could’ve saved the clueless Galaxy from another extinction—but failed because he couldn’t get a hardon. And that was fine. Let it all go to hell! Let the Reapers reap, let everyone die and let life begin anew. What did he care? He could lie and steal and murder, but he had never signed up for _this_. It was physically impossible.

The extranet disagreed. In a millisecond, his search delivered a hundred different drugs that made it eminently possible. Disgusted, he scrolled through the list on his omni. Narrowed the search to eliminate potentially toxic and allergenic compounds and anything that’s been in use for less than a decade. Leaving three dozen products that had been tried and tested by millions of satisfied turians with minimal side-effects. The prices were all about the same. He picked one at random and watched 129.99 credits drain off his account for a single dose. Synthesize? the omni offered. _Yes_. Inject?

He stood there, counting the hammer-strikes of his heartbeat. Am I doing this? Am I really doing this?

 _Yes_.

Other than a brief touch of warmth around the subdermal injector on his forearm, he didn’t feel a thing. But he could swear he could sense the foreign substance spread through his body, invading and contaminating it. He wondered if the nanites, Sovereign’s hateful messengers and spies that effectively held him hostage, would counter the effects. A part of him wished it.

Another part of him came to life so suddenly it almost gave him a start. So soon? It hadn’t been five minutes since Nihlus had left with the girl, and not even one since he had taken the drug.

Well. It worked as advertised.

By the time he returned to the cabin, either the drug or the anxiety had made his pulse race as if he had been sprinting. Standing in front of the door, he labored to calm down and slow his breathing, but the pulse would not slow. His chest ached. Perhaps he would instead go down in history as the man who tried to save the clueless Galaxy from extinction by forcing himself on his oldest friend but failed due to a heart attack.

Elthe reclined on the heap of pillows in her underwear, the blanket Nihlus had brought from the Othrys cast to the side. Was it only his imagination, or was she looking at him strangely, like she knew what he was up to? He cleared his throat and stepped deeper inside the small room so the door would close. Directed by the circumstances of his visit to focus on her body, he noted that the bruises on her side had faded into dark-rimmed blotches of brown and green, like ink stains. It was a good sign. She would make a full recovery, he nodded to himself. Yes. That’s why he was there. To help her recover.

“Saren?”

“Yes.”

She snorted. “Trying to get the chair up the stairs but it’s in a water a bit, eh?”

Distracted by the bodily sensations that could not be more incongruous with his state of mind, Saren thought, for a moment, that her speech was back to normal. To hide his confusion, he pulled up the chair and sat facing her. “I spoke with Benezia earlier today,” he said. “About your… condition.”

Elthe rolled her eyes. “By the stage there lies a widow.”

“Who else could I ask for advice? I know you two aren’t fond of each other, but we’re all on the same side in this matter.”

“He’s comforted with me,” she grunted, making a disgusted face. “He looks all over the highchair and then takes to flight. Sunshine above me and put a shower from the canvas on the door.” At last she folded her arms under her breasts. “So? Return from the ride?”

“She said—” Saren had to gasp for air. “She said that I might be able to help you restore order to your memories. ‘Restore her cognitive integrity,’ were her exact words.” He stared at the blanket, zooming in on its synthetic fiber hairs, then on the particles of dust caught between them. “By melding with you. Fully. That way we could retrieve the location of the beacon, and their base of operations, and everything else you have learned. So we could rid the world of them.” He hazarded a glance over her shoulder. “But more importantly, it might help you recover faster. She said—” There was _a lot_ of dust in that blanket. “—it might take months or years for you to regain normal speech with conventional psychotherapy. And that I still carry the imprint of your neural template even though it has been so—”

“Modern beyond me,” Elthe said softly. “Coming to forgive and rain on the seed. Struggle with the knowledge of the water.”

Her nonsensical utterances had a humorous sound, but Saren didn’t dare look at her face.

“Or first? Out of the afternoon?”

When he kept staring stubbornly ahead, she reached for him and with a single finger barely touching his chin, turned his head towards her. It reminded him with extraordinary clarity of the days of his youth under her expert supervision, exercising his fledgling biotics, yes, but also teaching him to reconcile the world within and the world without. With an immense effort, he looked in her kind, dark eyes.

“Out of the afternoon?” she repeated.

“I am willing, if that’s what you’re asking.” He swallowed, feeling absurdly restrained by the tip of her finger on his chin. “Are you?”

“In the afternoon and extremely old,” she said. Then with a smile that didn’t quite take hold, she nodded.

Saren froze. Not in the abrupt way people freeze upon seeing a weapon pointed at them; he froze slowly, one numb extremity after another, as the reality of the situation settled in. He knew he was supposed to demonstrate his willingness now, somehow. Look at her, touch her, with eroticism that just wasn’t there. He couldn’t move a muscle.

Elthe laughed. “The father’s house is dark and demanding, hard to reach.” Releasing his chin, her fingers trailed up his right mandible, then higher, to explore the scars on his horn. He closed his eyes, resisting the urge to lean out of reach. “I’m gathering goods to return to the last machine. Does Nihlus run there?”

“Yes, Nihlus did that,” Saren murmured. He was more than half-sure that wasn’t her question, but it didn’t matter. Presenting as vulnerable and uncomfortable enough to share intimate secrets might entreat her to take the lead, as she had in the past. There was no other way this would work. But how could she? He opened his eyes to appraise her physical condition. She could barely move her arm without wincing in pain, let alone something more. Even with medigel, broken ribs were notoriously slow to heal.

“My weight, my back, my spine.”

Saren looked at her, uncomprehending.

“It will hurt because they’re not parted,” she tried to explain. “Nihlus and Eleni. Gathering goods to return?”

Ah. “If you’re asking whether I arranged for them to leave so you and I could be alone—no. It was Nihlus’s idea. But I did tell him you needed blood replacement, and that my medical unit was running low. They’ll have to go to Huerta for it. We should have at least a couple hours.” The chatter felt as alien in his mouth as the massive erection between his legs, but if they had to talk, it was, for once, better he did the talking. “I lied, of course. I’d never take off without a full stock of medical supplies. And you don’t really need blood replacement either.” He took the opportunity to place a hand on her bruised flank. “Is it tender? I don’t know how to…the last thing I want is to hurt you even more.”

Her skin was incredibly warm, and he realized with a delay that the slight flinch at his touch was probably caused by _his_ skin being incredibly cold. Elthe shook her head, then took his hand and held it in both of hers, warming it. Next, she pulled it towards her face and kissed it. She kissed his knuckles and ran her tongue along his talons. Saren watched anxiously, hoping for at least a trickle of arousal, no matter how small, to help him out, but nothing happened. He could never understand what kind of sex appeal he could possibly have, especially for aliens, but experience had taught him that he did have some, and apparently Elthe still responded to it. Genuine desire sparked in her eyes, and he was grateful his own could not betray the utter lack of the same in him.

She beckoned him closer. She wanted to kiss. Bracing an elbow on the side of the bed next to her pillows, Saren leaned over her and complied. Nihlus had told him that the tongue, long by the standards of most aliens, was the second most sought-after feature of turian anatomy. And he had taught Saren to use his for remarkable effects. Elthe moaned and writhed. Still gripping his hand, she directed it down along her body, over the mound of her breast and the valley of her stomach. Obediently, Saren wormed a finger inside her underwear and felt her moist folds. When she backed away from the kiss to take air and groan, the oily film of the inner lids had already covered her eyes.

Saren stood tall, his heart beating furiously against his ribcage, his robe tenting in front of him in a vulgar display. Elthe’s hand navigated deftly between its flaps, grabbed him, and started stroking. Yet still, he felt nothing but a mild nausea. Like morning erections, this one was insensitive despite its abundance. She might as well have been stroking his spur.

Well. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about “keeping his passion in check”.

Without ceremony, he took off his clothes, piling them on the chair, then carefully slid Elthe’s panties down her legs. She seemed impossibly small and delicate under him when he mounted the bed. A grimace of pain distorted her features while they maneuvered into position but was soon replaced by an expression of surrender and lust. With arms secured upwards of her shoulders and keel hovering as high above her chest as possible, Saren angled his hips and pushed.

The meld began almost instantly. A dreamlike mist enveloped him, mercifully attenuating the awareness of his body and its discordant senses. He was within the mist, and then he _was_ the mist, a small, irregular nebula in a universe devoid of distant light or matter. Elthe was a nebula too, but different. Larger by an order of magnitude, folded in some nameless but perfectly precise shape, and infinitely more complex.

They floated closer and closer, carried by the gravity of intent. The meld distorted the sense of time. A quarter of an hour or less than a minute might have passed outside. Regardless, he had to hurry and prepare himself. Detach a part of his inner world and leave it hanging by the thinnest thread of thought that Elthe would hopefully not detect. He had done something similar in all their encounters after his discovery of Sovereign. But it _had_ been a long time. The part to detach had been smaller, easier to contain, draw borders around and manage as an entirely separate personality all those years ago. Now, almost everything about him was involved with his quest in one way or another, and only a tattered, ill-defined residual remained after cutting all of that out. His work for the Council, his political activity and a few of his investments, the carefully maintained front of his friendship with Benezia, and of course, Nihlus. He hoped Elthe would be drawn to that last aspect of him, the only one that still resembled a whole, like she had been in their yesterday’s superficial meld.

It was a dangerous game. Asari had developed many evolutionary adaptations around their unique reproduction system, among them a host of psychological tricks to preserve privacy while sharing mind-space. Effortless for them, they were a major challenge for anyone else, and could have a spectrum of unwanted effects, some as mild as a temporary memory loss, others as severe as Elthe’s strange mental fragmentation. It was too late to weigh such consequences, however. He was committed, and so was she, and they were past the point of no return.

Outside, his body went through the motions. Through the thickening veil of the meld, he observed that Elthe wasn’t in any pain, and indeed seemed to be enjoying herself. For the first time, Saren felt a flicker of something akin to arousal. But then he was sucked into the violent whirlwind of her consciousness.

The chaos in there was of mythical proportions. Like the shallow dreams following tense combat situations, images and concepts swarmed, ebbed and flowed in malignant waves. The dungeon, the miniature circle of light and freedom high above and out of reach, the bucket, the nausea. Fists in her chest, knees on her spine, screams in her ears, from all sides at once. They paraded in their prothean costumes, with triangular, many-eyed masks and fairy wings sticking out from the back. At once ridiculous and frightening in their insanity. Some sort of ritual, twisted, menacing, an altar, a pyre. The blue of biotic lift, threatening to rend her bound limbs from her floating body. Pain too great to take. Dark again, silence, the dungeon, the bucket. A different mask leaning above her. A familiar voice.

 _Nihlus_.

Instantly he was transported into his own memory, and she followed, and allowing her to witness it was possibly the bravest thing he had ever done. In the darkened cockpit, he knelt. Not naked but thoroughly dishevelled. His hands were tied at the wrists behind his back with his headscarf. His face was wet with tears and drool. Nihlus held his head in place and relentlessly thrusted into his mouth, with no consideration whatsoever of his discomfort or even his need to breathe. With no consideration of his age, status, relationships, responsibilities, riches, of the very fact that he was a _person_. Treating him worse than he would a whore. Treating him like he was a _thing_. Saren hated it. Who wouldn’t? Yet at the same time, he loved it. Wanted it. _Needed_ it. Nothing else—no one else—could stop the world. Stop the incessant buzzing of his thoughts. Let him lose himself and forget _everything_. His lies and guilt and grand but grim destiny—

He clambered back with a startled gasp as the thin thread suddenly tightened. There was no need to pretend, as far as pretending was even possible, that he did it out of embarrassment. If embarrassment could kill, he’d be a dead man right now. Outside, Elthe’s back arched up and she cried in pleasure and pain of a climax. Saren realized with alarm that he wasn’t so far from it either. How long had they been at it?

The concept of time took on the dream-image of his mechanical clock, racing backwards. It was Elthe’s doing. She pulled him into the fraktaline mayhem of another, older memory. Granite floor, icy under her bare feet. A strangely fractured field of view, a narrow passage, erratic torchlight. The mask cut off her lateral vision and the silent stone sentinels that watched the procession from the sides borrowed monstrous, nightmarish shapes from her terrified imagination. Her right wing caught on something, but she couldn’t stop and when she jerked forward, she felt it tear. The shuffle of feet and the rustle of costumes surrounded her. There was nowhere to run.

Run! Strike, kick, claw, bite, lash out with biotics. Bones shattered, skulls crumbled, blood from half a dozen bodies pooled around her feet. But too many of them still drew breath. They swarmed around her, hundreds, thousands, fists, knees, screams. Crucified by their savage pull, helpless and wounded, she hung in the air, facing the beacon.

The beacon!

Saren felt the inexorable drag of his secret self, trying to assert itself, trying to take control and force the answers out of her. Where _was_ that? She must’ve had a look around. What were those statues? There had to be _something_!

But what stopped him wasn’t his willpower or the professed concern for Elthe’s wellbeing. It was the blind horror upon sensing the sinister whispers of the Reaper’s presence, searching the deathly void that enveloped his consciousness. They had been alerted by his unusual activity. In moments, Their attention would be upon him.

Outside, he had stopped moving, paralyzed by panic that threatened to break the meld. Perhaps he should let it? End it before it was too late, before They found him. But he was so close! Just another moment and he would find what he was looking for. Elthe felt it too, and she urged him on, her hands on his buttocks desperate to pull him closer, misreading his hesitation as worry. “I dream of light,” she was saying, over and over. “I must dream of light!” Immersed deep inside her, body and mind alike, he understood her perfectly. “Don’t stop. Please, don’t stop!”

He plunged in, one last time. The narrow passage with the statues—it started from an oval hall with pews and displays— _a church? A museum?_ An immense monument of Athame reigned supreme from a decorate alcove— _a temple! But where? Which one!?_ It was lit with the soft hues of Thessian sunset that came through the tall entrance—and beyond it a terrace large enough to fit a battalion—and beyond it sprawled the unique, unmistakable skyline of Pellien.

Hidden in plain sight, the Thessian beacon had been right under their damn noses through all the years of toil and peril they had spent searching for it.

Unchecked euphoria hit Saren like a shot of stims and he only realized with a delay that it was the first throe of a forceful orgasm. It thundered through him, obliterating his self-control.

 _Well, well_ , whispered Sovereign.

Malformed, suppressed fears, stirred by Their presence, surfaced from the labyrinth of Saren’s forgotten nightmares. Now it was he who hung helpless in the air, crucified by cables that cut through skin and plate. Insatiable curiosity and cruelty vibrated in them as they snaked around his trembling limbs, spiraling higher and higher, intent on exploring every orifice. Alone in the entrails of the living ship, he was beyond help, beyond salvation. At Their mercy. And They found that concept… illogical.

Even in dreamtime, the flash was over in an instant. But Elthe had seen it alright. It had cut her own climax short, and the echoes of shock and fear, both his and hers, reverberated through the meld.

And then everything unraveled at once in an unstoppable cascade.

“What is this?” she gasped.

There was no time to celebrate the apparent recovery of her normal speech. The endeavor, which had for a moment seemed to be a shining success, threatened to turn into a catastrophe.

_Give her to us._

The violent spasms still shook Saren’s frame as he struggled to hide himself from Elthe’s inner gaze and with an even greater urgency, hide _her_ from Theirs. But she struggled back. The gentle lover’s embrace of their mingled minds turned into wrestling. She would not allow him to retreat from the meld until she had answers of her own.

“What are you _doing_?” she said, as that thin thread on which his secret life hung folded in on itself under the stress of her scrutiny and he became whole again. “What have you _done_?”

“What I had to,” he replied, trying to regain his breath amid the drumming of his heart. She had seen it now, she knew everything, and there was no point in hiding anymore, in lying. The relief that came over him with the realization that he’d never have to lie to her again was immense. What joy it would be, to have a friend, a true, trusted friend, someone who not only knew him, but loved him despite it, fight by his side!

“By the side of that monster? Against everything you know and love? Why? Saren, why?”

“So not _all_ of it would be destroyed.”

“That’s insane! _You’re_ insane! That _thing_ has blinded you to reason. Saren,” she pleaded, caressing his shoulders. Back in normal time, back in their bodies, they were still locked in the coital position, panting, sweaty, wet and sticky. “Saren, please. Listen to me. It’s not too late. Come forward with what you have learned. Sparatus worships you and Tevos—”

They both froze in horror and astonishment as together they relived, in a flash, another fragment of Elthe’s memory. In the chamber of the beacon, where the others had marched her in, a figure clad in a much more elaborate and grandiose version of the winged garment stood as the centerpiece of the ritual. Elthe had known to expect it. Athame as Maiden greeted new members in a similar ceremony; this was Athame as Matron, here to initiate her in the lowest circle of the cult’s mysteries; and eventually, Athame as Matriarch would initiate her into the highest. But of course, she would never get that far. The initiation began with ritual unmasking. And in Elthe’s case, that’s where it had ended too.

“—is a friend,” Elthe had meant to say before the revelation.

“—is one of them,” Saren said after it. He could almost laugh out of surprise and a sort of childish glee. So, he wasn’t the only one to lie, wear a mask, and keep secrets that affected billions of lives. It was almost too good to be true. The best leverage Benezia could wish for.

But this wasn’t the time to speculate on the consequences of the unexpected discovery. Elthe had meant to implore him to speak with the Council. To say that, all these years since his discovery of the Sovereign, he had been gathering intel, so he could be sure of the Reaper’s intentions, but all in their service. To beg for their forgiveness.

But there was nothing to forgive. He was going to save the Galaxy and the Council would just stand in his way. And his way was the only way. Why couldn’t she see that?

She stilled and stared in his eyes. The final image he glimpsed through the meld was one of himself, twenty and more years ago, a skinny youth who would not speak nor look people in the eyes, firing up from within, for the first time without pain, and laughing, for the first time without pretense, as he floated half a meter above the ground. “My boy,” she sobbed. “My beautiful boy. How can you betray me too?”

“It doesn’t have to go that way.” Touched by the deep affection that permeated the memory, Saren leaned down in real-time and brushed Elthe’s forehead with his own before whispering into her ear. “You could join me.”

As an ally, as a friend, as a lover, whatever it took. He would leave Nihlus. He would leave his service as a Spectre and find other means, if only she would follow. Anything! Anything was better than the alternative.

Elthe laughed or sobbed or something in between. She was shaking her head, her mind made up.

“I’d rather die.”

But of course, she meant that she’d rather do her best to avoid it. By degrees, her grip on his consciousness became vicious, suffocating, and his vision darkened. She intended to make him faint, and then flee, taking his secrets with her, to the Council, to the media, to the detriment of all his efforts.

Suddenly it was no longer about persuading her. It was about stopping her. He was no equal to her on the mental battlefield, but he was also not alone. A moment of stillness, a wordless prayer at the altar of his true god, and Sovereign’s bottomless reservoir of power opened for him. The elation, the ecstasy of dipping into it made every other sensation fade. With savage joy, Saren tore the strangling tentacles of her consciousness off his own and broke the meld by force.

 _Let us have her,_ They whispered, urging him to go on _. That way, you can have her too. Forever._

“No,” he breathed. “Stop it.”

“ _You_ stop it,” Elthe cried. Her hands clawed harmlessly at the plates on his chest while her eyes, slowly clearing, cast around for a means of escape. “Let me go. Saren, I’m warning you!”

“Elthe, calm down. Let us talk like—”

“No! Let go! Right now!” She was now beating at his chest and shoulders, but her arms had no strength. Crippled by the pain in her weakened core, she couldn’t wriggle her hips from under him. “I need to get back to Eleni. Goddess,” she whispered, her expression shifting with some sordid revelation. “What have you done with her? Where is she? Where is she?!”

The idea that she’d suspect him of kidnapping her child, or worse, made Saren recoil. Whatever she had seen in there, in _him_ , she couldn’t have seen any foul intentions regarding the girl. But… who knows what she had seen lurking _behind_ him.

_Yes! The child, we want it! Give, give! Add to our perfection!_

“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head clear. “I didn’t do anything. She’s safe, with Nihlus. Calm down!”

But she wasn’t listening. With full panic, now fueled not only by the fear for herself but with the far more empowering fear for her child, some of her strength returned, and she bucked up, trying to dislodge him, while punching his arms and sides and finally his chin. He tasted blood. She scraped skin off his shoulders and sank her teeth into his forearm. But it wasn’t until her hands wrapped around his neck and robbed him of air that her assault triggered his combat reflexes.

With a swift, practiced movement, he immobilized her arms, pinning them down to the bed. She gave him a furious look, then broke out in an explosive biotic attack. But he had felt it coming and raised his barrier.

“Elthe,” he warned. “Don’t do this.” His voice was distorted by the rippling of the mass effect field that grew and intensified around them. Confident that she could overpower him, she pressed on. A grimace of effort and blind rage disfigured her face. Damn! He should’ve knocked her out as soon as the meld was over. Instead he stupidly allowed the fight to escalate.

_Yes! Yes! Show her the extent of our power!_

“No,” he muttered, but his gut told him that he would have to, whether he wanted it or not. Holding off her attack was no easy feat and it was getting harder by the moment. Elthe was a formidable biotic. And she wasn’t above playing dirty. When he least expected it, she savagely butted her forehead into his. Aided by biotics in a kind of a vanguard charge, it would have smashed his skull in if not for his own barrier. Even with it, the force of the blow was almost enough to knock him out. Lights dimmed and sound went off. A dangerous, dull pain spread from his eye sockets to the back of his neck. Trembling blobs of blue blood floated, weightless, in the mass effect field around them.

Other things floated in it too. A datapad, one of his gloves, Elthe’s underwear. It was spreading. The bed was shaking, and the hatches of the overhead storage compartments were rattling. A large enough field might be detected from the outside. The docks were under constant surveillance for gravitational anomalies that might signal a ship’s core malfunction. Someone might come to check it out.

As if in direct reply to his rushed calculations, his omni beeped from somewhere. A call from Nihlus. What now? They couldn’t be back already. Could they?

The distraction almost cost him his life. Out of nowhere, he was bound and blinded. Something hairy and dusty capped his nostrils and filled his mouth. The blanket! With her hands trapped, Elthe lifted it using biotics and wrapped it around his head and neck. She wrung it tighter and tighter, strangling him like a constrictor. Panicked by the sudden loss of sight and air, Saren instinctively grabbed at the blanket with his hands—and released hers.

She stabbed him. Later he would discover that she used her own fingers, shaped into a blade and accelerated with biotics, to penetrate the skin in the seam between his pectoral plates. Decades of training and experience had prevented him from dropping his barrier when he’d reached for the blanket, or she would’ve struck his heart and killed him.

Shocked, he struck back, blindly. Something snapped. The buzz of biotics ceased, and the blanket relaxed into its usual limp fluffiness. Saren clawed it off his face and inhaled with a deathly groan, like a man drowning. Elthe was unconscious.

 _Unfortunate_.

Ignoring the voice, Saren lowered his barrier, hoping that would make breathing easier. Even without the obstacle, he couldn’t get enough air and every labored breath threatened to tear his lungs. The wound on his abdomen bled profusely. Looking around for the weapon that had caused, it, he noticed the strange cramp in Elthe’s right hand, with all the fingers bunched up together to form a sort of cone. It was covered in his blood up to the wrist.

Aghast, he scrambled away, lost his balance and slid off the bed in a disgraceful pile. The floor was a mess of discarded clothes and small items that had been knocked off the desk and the shelves. Something crunched under his knee. His hands, slick with blood, left ghastly prints on everything he touched.

He stood up shakily, clutching the stab-wound, and went to get the med-kit from the bathroom. By the time he returned, the fat swat of medigel had mostly stopped the bleeding but he felt unaccountably weak. Unable to bend, he searched the things on the floor for his omnitool with his foot while holding on to the doorframe. Perhaps that had been what crunched. He gave up not half a minute later, exhausted, and leaned on the wall, trying to catch his breath. His heart never stopped racing since he had entered the cabin, more than half an hour ago.

Elthe was still unconscious. She looked peaceful, like she was fast asleep. He didn’t want to wake her up. What was he going to do? How was he to persuade her, after what had just happened, to join him, instead of reporting him? Elthe was a crusader. Her whole life had been a quest for providing freedom and justice to people in unfair positions. What were the chances he could change her mind about Sovereign? She would fight to her last breath before she would agree to serve Them in secret. Like she had told him already, she would rather die.

 _Bring her to us_.

To have her mind wiped?

 _To have her attitude adjusted_.

With a groan, Saren pushed himself upright and stepped closer to the bed. He knew what it meant to _have one’s attitude adjusted_. He had seen it during experiments with captives on Virmire. Hardly more self-aware than the husks the Reaper could raise from the dead, they either attacked anything that moved in the ultimate parody of paranoia or obeyed such simple orders they could still understand like mindless drones. He wouldn’t wish it upon anyone, least of all a friend.

A friend who had tried to kill him. A friend who was most certainly going to try it again when she woke up.

If she woke up.

Her breathing was too shallow to see. He held a trembling finger under her nose until a reluctant breath moistened it. Perhaps if he left her like this, she would just expire on her own. It was hard to tell what kind of damage his retaliation had caused. A concussion, most likely. An aggravation of her exiting injuries, also likely. He felt the pulse on her neck. Her heartbeat was erratic.

And so was Saren’s, as he picked up a discarded pillow from the side of the bed.

She moved when he lifted the hand from her neck, but he didn’t wait to see if she would wake. Judging by the lack of resistance when he covered her face with the pillow, she had not. The struggle of her body for air was passive and weak.

But it lasted a long time. Long enough to consider and reconsider what he was doing and where it would leave him, to account for everything that he had gained, and everything that he would lose. Tears dripped from his unblinking eyes and struck the pillow like the first fat drops of rain after a long drought, but he felt nothing. A vast numbness overcame him, a charred waste where nothing grew, and the only ray of light in it came from knowing that he could end his own life too.

With something comparable to a scoff, the last vestiges of Sovereign’s presence spirited out of his consciousness.


	9. The Aftermath

I knew it, Nihlus thought. I bloody knew it.

Under the white sheet, Elethea lay, dead. Nihlus carefully wiped the crusted droplet of blood from the corner of her cold lips. Her arms were folded somewhat clumsily over her chest. The deathly stiffness was already settling in.

Nihlus blinked his eyes dry and pulled the sheet back over her face. There hadn’t been enough time for him to get to know her, but he felt the pain of those she was leaving behind. It was all too easy to imagine learning, one day, that Saren had been killed. Remembering the real experience of loss when his father died was much more difficult; it had happened too long ago and now felt like a story from someone else’s life. Nihlus thought of Eleni and tears blurred his vision again. Damn.

Out of a lifelong habit, and because he craved a distraction, he gave the room an investigative look-over. No signs of struggle, obviously. The med-kit was still on the desk, open and uncharacteristically messy. A plastic syringe lay on the floor, crushed under a hurried foot. Dried drops of medigel shone from the desk, the armrest of the chair, the frame of the bed. His old fluffy blanket was stuffed into the trash bin on top of a bunch of tissues stained with asari blood. Probably soiled or torn. Everything else looked the same as always.

Apparently, the morning’s sport Elethea had subjected herself to, what with going down the stairs, using the toilet and taking a shower on her own, had aggravated her internal injuries. After Nihlus had taken Eleni out, Saren attempted another debriefing and had been, by his own admission, “too insistent”. She became upset and he grew frustrated and when he left her alone, he didn’t think to run a scan on her. He went upstairs and only heard her cough and choke when he came back down to the cockpit to plug in his omni, which had suffered a mysterious malfunction that rendered him unable to take Nihlus’s call. But at that point, it was already too late. Elethea’s lungs had filled with blood and she died of suffocation.

Deep down, Nihlus had known she would die since the moment he had found her in that cave. That was why he had “panicked” about her “non-lethal” condition and felt that the Virial had become a tomb, a vessel for the dead. Of course, he couldn’t say so to Saren. Because, one, Saren despised his superstitious reliance on intuition; and two, he was grieving and was in no need of smartassery. Walking out of the cabin, Nihlus decided to also spare Saren the dubious benefits of insisting that it hadn’t been his fault and that he couldn’t have done anything to prevent it. He could’ve taken her to a damn hospital.

He was in the commons, seated on a barstool and rocking gently back and forward, with one arm crossed over his chest and the other holding his heavy forehead. Silently, Nihlus embraced him from behind, mandible to mandible, and joined the rocking.

After a while, Saren cleared his throat. “Where’s the girl?”

“I left her with Sha’ira.”

“You took her to a whorehouse?”

“She’ll be safe there. And Sha’ira is as sensitive as they get. I’m pretty sure no one at the C-Sec or even the Huerta could handle Eleni better.”

At that, Saren shook his head, and the rocking intensified. But Nihlus knew it wasn’t about leaving the girl in a “whorehouse”. It was about the future. Who would take care of the kid now? A special kid like that? He remembered that Saren too had lost his mother at an early age, but he’d at least had an older brother. Until he had lost that too.

Nihlus held him closer. “I’m so sorry, my love.”

“Don’t,” Saren croaked. He cleared his throat again, regaining control of his voice. “I don’t want your sympathy. And even if I did, I don’t deserve it.”

“You could say the same for the lot of what I contribute to this relationship.” Nihlus rubbed his nose on Saren’s ear. “I don’t care if you deserve it. And you don’t have to want it to get it.”

“It’s not helpful. Makes it worse, not better.”

“Ain’t nothing gonna make it better. Not for a while.”

Saren groaned, pushing him away. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” He stood there for a few seconds, holding on to the counter-top like someone unsure of their balance, then dragged his feet to the viewport and locked his hands behind his back. The clicking of his talons, one against another, outvoiced even the ticking of the clock.

“Right,” Nihlus muttered, nodding at his back. “What could I possibly know about losing someone I love.” Since his own family was obviously living happily ever after somewhere nice and safe, he had never been left behind or outright betrayed by a friend, or sent an operative under his command to certain death. Stung, he clasped his mandibles tight to stop himself from saying it all out loud.

Saren drew a long breath. “That’s not what I meant.” In the long pause that followed, he stopped tapping his talons and curled his hands into white-knuckled fists. “I killed her, Nihlus.” He turned halfway, mandibles twitching in search for words. The shadowless light of the Citadel afternoon bounced strangely off his pale carapace, framing his profile in a sort of a hazy halo. He turned away again. “I killed her as surely as if I shot her.”

“But you didn’t, ok? You didn’t cause her injuries, or her state of mind. You just… couldn’t save her.”

“I could.”

“It’s not the same. You didn’t _choose_ this.”

“I chose to use her.”

With a tired sigh, Nihlus walked past the seat Saren had vacated, absently feeling it for leftover warmth, and stood at an arm’s length behind him. What was the use of debating? They both knew all the arguments and counterarguments one could possibly bring forward. How death was an inextricable part of their work, just as deception and seduction were necessary tools of their trade; how they both could’ve easily died in place of their agents dozens of times in not for sheer luck; how men like them had to do the things they swore to protect others from because it was the only way to keep those others innocent and worth protecting. But it would be a waste of breath.

“You can hate yourself all you like,” he said in the end. “But I still love you.”

Saren shook his head. “You don’t know the things I’ve done,” he said in a coarse whisper.

“I don’t need to. I know _why_ you’ve done them.”

Finally, Saren turned to face him. For a moment it looked like he would insist on his point, but then he changed his mind and took to staring at Nihlus’s midsection in silence. Good, because there was only so much patronizing Nihlus could take, even from his old mentor. Had Saren forgotten that Nihlus was a Spectre too? That his own hands were far from clean?

He placed one of them on Saren’s left shoulder, and after some hesitation, Saren covered it with his own. His brows were gathered, his breathing labored, his subvocals an odd mix of alarm and suffering. “Nihlus—”

“I’m sorry.” Perhaps he had been the one to patronize and unduly insist on making a point. This was hardly the time to be telling Saren how he should feel. “Sometimes I don’t know when to stop.”

“No. Nihlus—”

Saren’s hand slid down to clutch at his chest as a grimace of pain replaced his neutral expression.

“What’s the matter?” Sudden fear surged up from his stomach. “Saren, what’s wrong?”

But Saren was unable to answer. Fighting for breath like there was something stuck in his throat, he collapsed on his knees and would’ve bitten the dust if Nihlus didn’t break his fall and laid him, convulsing, on his side. A blind panic took him, and later he would remember little of what followed; only that his own trash poetry returned to haunt him and looped through his head, mocking, while he went through the motions of resuscitation on autopilot.

_A tomb, a tomb, a vessel for the dead._


	10. The Waking

Saren woke to a nauseating headache. His eyelids were heavy as if shot with lead and it took him a while to lift them. He was back in the cabin. In the very center of the crime scene, in fact. Realizing he was on that same bed, lying on _that_ pillow, he tried to crawl away, but his limbs lacked the strength and all he did was shuffle among the sheets.

“Calm down,” Nihlus said. “You’re alright.”

He was there, of course. Sitting on the chair with his feet propped on the desk. He was always there, for better or for worse.

Saren looked up to meet his gaze and found it accusatory instead of concerned. Had he discovered something? Some clue Saren had failed to consider in shock and grief? The sudden fear made his heart race. His chest ached and his head pounded in protest. Silently, he sank back into the pillow and closed his eyes again.

“What did you do with Elthe,” he whispered.

“I took her to the hangar. Don’t worry. I changed the sheets.”

Saren tried to nod in gratitude, but every move was pain.

“How do you feel?”

“Headache.”

“Mhm. Anything else?”

With a great effort, Saren cracked his eyes open once more. He planned to say nothing, admit nothing. But something about the intensity of Nihlus’s stare and the predatory focus of his expression changed his mind. “Chest pain,” he confessed.

“Ah,” Nihlus said, swinging his legs down. He planted his elbows on his knees and leaned closer. “And how long have you been feeling this chest pain, exactly?”

Saren looked around in an earnest attempt to remember. It had probably been more than a year since he felt it the first time, and it reoccurred on a seemingly random basis, say, once or twice a month. He had paid it no heed till recently. It had been visiting him at least weekly in the three months since Elthe had gone under cover. And daily since her emergency locator had started emitting.

But all he said was, “A while.” Just thinking about the breath he’d need to voice all those words exhausted him.

“And you figured the best thing to do about it is nothing,” Nihlus said. “Right? You didn’t say anything to anyone, not even your physician on Virmire.”

It wasn’t a question and Saren didn’t answer.

“I’ll take that as a yes. I’ll also venture to guess it didn’t occur to you to even give yourself a one-over with your fancy med scanner. Because, brilliant as you are otherwise, you have some brain damage that prevents you from understanding that you _can_ , in fact, get fucking sick and eventually fucking die.”

“We all eventually die.”

“Don’t give me that shit. If I gave you that shit back in the commons, you’d have punched me in the face.”

That was true. Saren had been close to doing it even without the aid of dime-a-dozen philosophy. He tried for a deeper inhale, but it felt like being stabbed. Which reminded him. He hazarded a glance down his person at the cost of a sickening rise in the intensity of the headache. His clothes had been torn to reveal his chest and stomach.

“Oh, yeah,” Nihlus said. “I know all about your secret wound too.”

Panic, watered-down by the medication, made Saren dizzy. He hadn’t foreseen the need to explain the stab wound and coming up with something convincing in his present state would be next to impossible.

But then Nihlus got up and started pacing heatedly, the whole of two paces he could make in either direction. “I don’t care if it’s days old,” he was saying. “You should’ve told me. Before last night.”

Days? Saren struggled to catch up. Could medigel have caused the injury to appear so much older than it was? Or was it the nanites? Nihlus’s eyes flashed at him with a fury so palpable it almost registered as an actual whiplash, but Saren was relieved. Anger was far better than suspicion.

“I can’t believe that after all these years—after all the talks about safety—you’d keep something like that from me. What if I hurt you, huh? Did you stop to think about how that would make me feel? Do you _ever_ think about anything but yourself and your own needs? Pushing the limits is one thing but this—” He stopped in his tracks, covered his mouth with a hand, then swiped it upwards, perhaps to shield his eyes from the offending sight of Saren lying helpless in a sickbed. He didn’t finish his thought.

After a while, Saren swallowed, trying to moisten his dry throat. “Did I have an infarction?”

“Yes.” The hand dropped despondently. “A small one, I was told. There should be no long-lasting consequences unless you run off to combat or some other idiocy without taking a few weeks of down-time. But yes, Saren. You had a heart attack. And if I didn’t happen to be there, you’d probably be dead.”

_I’d probably be better off_. “Told by who?” he said aloud.

“Droyas.”

Saren’s thoughts followed sluggishly. There would be no consequences, period. The nanites would rebuild anything that was damaged. Why they hadn’t done anything to prevent the escalation of the illness was a question for another day. Perhaps they had even caused it, inadvertently. Who knew what experiments Sovereign had them do in the name of improving Saren’s physical and biotic prowess?

Droyas knew all this. What lies had he spun for Nihlus? Saren didn’t like it when others did the lying for him. It was a fine craft that he had been honing since Shanxi and no one else could be trusted to perform it at his standard of excellence. The only way to keep your lies consistent was to keep them as close to the truth as possible. The more fantastic some fiction, the more likely you were to slip up and forget a key detail.

As if in answer to his muddled musings, Nihlus laughed, incongruously. “He also told me that it was just a question of when something like this would happen. That you’ve been pushing yourself too hard with all the new implants and whatnot. That your stress levels are off the chart on a good day. That he warned you more than once. Your fat krogan doctor had to tell me all that, because, when I ask how you’re doing, you say— _Same as always_." He deadpanned and deepened his voice in a caricature of Saren’s. “ _I’m fine, Nihlus. Just a headache._ And Nihlus, the idiot, believes you. Spirits!”

When Saren said nothing in his defense, Nihlus deflated and sat down again. “I didn’t know who else to call. See, even though I feared you might die, I didn’t take you to a hospital, because you made me swear it. I always wondered if I’d be able to let you die just to keep my damn word. I guess I know now.” He laughed again, but his subvocals were those of anguish. “Would’ve made one hell of an irony. For you both to die on the same day from some trivial shit that any half-competent medic could fix in a minute.”

A minute of silence passed, and Nihlus leaned forward so he could support his head with his arms, like it was some great burden. _Nihlus, Nihlus. If only you knew._ “I’d have taken you to Virmire,” he said in the end. “If not for Eleni.”

Sharp pain coursed through Saren at the mention of the name. He must’ve made some noise because it made Nihlus look up. “I know it’s not the best time to talk about this. But she can’t stay with Sha’ira much longer. I’ll have to go pick her up soon. And you’ll have to figure out what to do with her… later.”

“Witness protection.”

“Yeah. Probably for the best.” Nihlus nodded, but his mandibles twitched nervously. “Do you uh… want her to see the uh... body?”

Saren closed his eyes, suffering another wave of pain and nausea. Inevitably, he thought of his own mother and her premature demise. He had been small enough for everyone to assume he didn’t know what death was. Eleni was older, and despite a relatively sheltered existence, had witnessed it before. He had planned to incinerate the body and leave no trace of it, but perhaps he didn’t have to. Perhaps a funeral would help the child make sense of her mother’s sudden disappearance.

“I don’t know,” he whispered. As Benezia had so eloquently put it, he was unfit to decide what was good for a captive pyjack, let alone a little girl. “What do you think?”

“We could convert a torpedo shell into a coffin. Fly somewhere nice, shoot her into space. Do you think she’d like that? Elethea, I mean. Or was she more of a monument type?”

“Eleni will be her monument.” And as Saren vowed, behind his closed lids and in the tense stillness of his sedated mind, that he would do right by her, that he would set aside the funds and make the connections and do whatever else it took to ensure she could one day stand tall and proud and be recognized, he remembered. In the end, when all barriers within the meld had been demolished and Elthe had glimpsed his most vigilantly guarded secrets, so too had he glimpsed some of hers.

His gasp turned into a pained whimper and Nihlus was momentarily on his feet, hovering above him, eyes wide with alarm. “What is it? What’s wrong? Are you ok?”

“Nothing,” Saren croaked, willing his hand, which had involuntarily crumpled the sheets on his chest in a deathly grip to contain the shock, relax again by his side. “I’m fine.”

“Spirits, Saren, don’t do this to me.” Nihlus caressed his crest, his mandibles, his collar, then rested his head on Saren’s forehead, whispering through heavy breaths. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I got mad. I’m an ass, ok? But you scared the shit out of me. Please, promise me that you’ll say something if you feel ill again. Just for a couple weeks, till you’re back to normal. Please? I’ll cancel all my stuff, take a leave, stay here and help you with the kid. Ok? Or leave you alone if that’s what you prefer. I’ll do whatever you want, just please—”

“Shut up,” Saren said, but in truth, he felt like crying. It was the drugs, more drugs, who knows what Nihlus had given him? He hated drugs, but he was grateful, and he hated that too, because he didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve the help and he didn’t deserve the concern and he sure as hell didn’t deserve the love. Yet he held on to the back of Nihlus’s head with the despair of a man hanging over a precipice. “I promise.”

#

A couple hours later, he stood on the dock in front of the Virial’s airlock, waiting. The starport seemed busier than usual. He had read somewhere that it housed between fifteen and twenty thousand passengers at any time of day and it felt like fully half of them were looking at him. Even after years of practice in hiding his crimes, he still mistrusted his own face and voice to stand to scrutiny unless he arranged and controlled every twitch, word and thought. And his grip was slippery. Hazy from the medication and exhausted, physically and emotionally, into a near-catatonic stupor, he felt like a drunk struggling to walk a distant and blurry line.

A kind of stage-fright gripped him briefly when he spotted Nihlus in the crowd. Handsome, tall and athletic, he was as much of a pleasure to observe from afar as he was to consume with all senses from up close. At this distance, Saren couldn’t make out the network of fine cracks and lines on his carapace even at maximum magnification, nor discern the nameless sadness that often dimmed his eyes of late; he seemed as young and vital and irresistibly naïve as he had been eight years ago when they had started on this strange path of doomed intimacy.

Saren tiredly wondered if he would one day be forced to murder and bury Nihlus too, and if he could live with that, as he was obviously able to live with what he had done to Elthe. If being alive was the same as living. He was certainly not the same man he had been yesterday. That man had died from a stab that stopped his heart. Someone different survived. Someone lesser.

Minutes passed before he caught sight of the girl too. She clung to Nihlus’s ungloved talon, staring around with the same unfocused, seemingly uncomprehending wonder. A small rucksack hung from her shoulders that Saren didn’t remember bringing from Thessia. Perhaps Nihlus had bought it, or Sha’ira. Perhaps the thresher toy was in it. She had taken it along in the morning, but it wasn’t in her hand now. She carried a weapon instead: the Elanus debut sidearm of 2173, nicknamed the Wasp. At the time, one of Saren’s favorites. For a moment he froze, thinking that Eleni was going to exact swift justice on him at the spot. But of course, it was just a toy. A good reproduction, at about 1/2 scale and by the way she swung it, likely weighing no more than 1/10 of the original.

Fascinated, Saren stared at it as they approached, and when they finally stopped before him, he couldn’t remember what he was supposed to do or say.

“Probably best to go inside,” Nihlus supplied after a while. “You aren’t supposed to be standing,” he added in an accusatory tone.

“I feel good,” Saren lied.

“You promised.”

“Promised!” Eleni chirped. As Nihlus took her through the gate, she turned around and shot Saren with her toy sidearm. “Pew, pew!” Both shots got him in the chest, waking the now familiar ache. He followed gingerly.

Nihlus made him sit on the low couch facing the projector and went as far as to push him back into the cushion when Saren tried to remain upright. “Don’t make me tie you up,” he whispered, and for once, it was neither a joke nor innuendo. He poured the leftover purple juice in a teacup and handed it to Eleni, who took it without objection and downed it all in one go. Perhaps he had threatened to tie her up too.

“Take that off, sweetie,” he said, and Eleni let him help her out of the rucksack.

“Where’s mama?” She ran to the center of the room, where the hoverbed had been set up before.

“We’ll uh… go see her in a minute.” Nihlus looked at Saren and nodded.

“Eleni. Come.” Saren’s voice, eroded from disuse and exhaustion, got her attention. Or perhaps she could detect with some other sense what she couldn’t hear in his subvocals, like that day—yesterday, it had only been yesterday—when she hid from him behind the klixen sculpture. She ran over but slowed down to a halt just out of his reach. With a groan, he sat up and extended a hand in her direction. “Come.”

He was certain that, had it been any hand but his, she would’ve ignored it. But his hand came with her long-time fascination—the smooth, sharpened talons. He wasn’t wearing gloves. Eleni made another step forward and took his index talon with her tiny fingers, feeling its texture and testing the tip.

“I must tell you something important,” he said. They both stared at her fingers at play. “While you were out in the Presidium, your mother suddenly got very ill… and died.” He glanced at her face, but there was no reaction that he could see. She kept rubbing his talon and if her grip tightened, it was by such a small degree that he couldn’t be sure he hadn’t made it up. Suddenly it was no longer so hard to see why the adults had swarmed him with stupid questions after the death of his own mother. If he was anything like Eleni—and there was no doubt about it anymore—he had probably given away even less. “She’s gone,” he went on. “Do you understand?”

“Mama’s gone,” she said. She glanced at his face now, but they could only keep it up for a split second before focusing back on the hands between them. “Like aunt Nerada?”

“Yes.”

“Where did they go?”

Saren swallowed. He had asked the same question, and the adults had taken it as further proof that he didn’t understand he would never see his mother again. “I don’t know,” he said. “No one knows what happens when we die. But we’re all bound to learn, one day. When our time comes.”

“Because everyone dies.”

“Precisely.” He looked up at Nihlus, feeling, absurdly, that the child’s repetition of his own argument from before landed it new weight and credence. But Nihlus was staring resolutely upward—a gesture Saren knew to mean he was trying to hold back the tears—and didn’t seem to make the connection.

No tears were spilled by either Saren or the girl. She clung to his talon on the way to the hangar and throughout the firing sequence, asked a few questions that Nihlus probably found shocking from the mouth of a child, and nodded sagely while Saren explained, in all the gory detail, the calculation of the negligible probability that the torpedo shell containing Elthe’s body would hit anything before reaching its target newborn star.

In the days to come, Eleni hid less and spoke more, mostly to interrogate anyone at hand about the weapons in the online catalogs or the reasons all the different aliens in the news used them to kill each other. Nihlus interpreted the change in her behavior as an attempt to forge a bond with Saren now that her mother was no longer there, and warned that such a bond would hardly be in the girl’s best interest unless Saren could commit to maintaining it in the future. As usual, his insight went deeper than it had any right to. It was all too easy to imagine Eleni awaiting messages, calls and visits from Saren with the unwavering devotion of a lonely child, like he had awaited Desolas, until, year by year, the constant disappointment built up into bitterness and resentment.

But what choice did he have? If the solution was pretending to shun the child, it was beyond his ability just as much as pretending to love her. And by making himself scarce, he would only burden Nihlus even more. No. She was Saren’s problem.

Of course, she was no more “his” now than she had been at birth, or even conception. Elthe had meant to keep it a secret he would never learn. Yes, she had lied to him, and if she had asked for his consent, he would not have given it. But it was impossible to hold a grudge now. She had never demanded anything of him, and she never would’ve; she never wanted him to be a part of Eleni’s life. And even had _he_ wanted that, she would’ve been well within her rights to decide against it. It was only logical. His life expectancy was but a fraction of Eleni’s; a tiny one, after accounting for the risks of his calling. And now, once he left her in foster care, he would likely never see her again.

And as their brief time together drew to an end, he came to realize she wasn’t a “problem” either. He enjoyed her silent, self-sufficient company, deep focus and endless patience for his long-winded explanations of such things that interested them both, like ballistics and biotics. He even enjoyed the games of hide-and-seek once he made peace with the fact that she had already been inside every nook and cranny of the ship and re-emerged unharmed. Her sense of perspective and lines of sight was unparalleled, as was her ability to remain motionless and soundless. And discovering new ways to be fooled by a child turned out an unexpected source of delight.

On Thessia, Benezia’s men secured the prothean beacon in one swift strike. For once, she and Saren were of the same mind regarding the prospect of publicizing the finding. More than the artifact itself and the associated archive, unveiling the involvement of the highest echelons of asari government in hiding them would cause a political uproar on a scale unseen in centuries. The attention of the media would only be a hindrance. Sovereign’s interests were far better served by blackmailing Tevos into an unwilling alliance instead.

This decision constituted another betrayal of Elthe, who had been in it from the start for the sake of revealing the truth to the masses. Saren had planned to negotiate with her a brief period of exclusive access to the archive before Benezia maneuvered to appoint Elthe its custodian, garnering the support of late Nerada’s flock. Even that would’ve been difficult. Elthe had been a matron by age, but still a maiden in heart, and she would’ve rebelled against acting covertly, even if she believed it was for the greater good. In a way, Saren was relieved she wasn’t there to object. But such musings only fed the guilt. The guilt he would have to bear for as long as he lived.

Increasingly often, he fantasized of making ‘as long as he lived’ quite a bit shorter. What a relief it would be, to lay down his burdens and responsibilities, forget all the lies and the yet more horrible truths; to lean back, exhale one last time, and let the small nebula of his consciousness expand into nothingness.


End file.
